Breaking Both My Wings
by Enigmatic Tathren
Summary: A new plot would guarantee Jeff any title he wants, as long as he doesn’t fly-high for two months. The catch? It was suggested by one of his coworkers and if he doesn’t figure out who before time runs out he’ll be grounded forever.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable people/characters, only the few OC's that will appear. **

**A/N: So here you go- the sequel to Time Withers All. A bit more of a mystery this time, but still (hopefully) good. I won't update for another week because I'm going to be on vacation, but after that I'll try to update semi-regularly. Also, this takes place pre-draft (like Time Withers All), so everyone is where they were before then and McMahon hasn't had that bizarre accident that no one knows anything about because they aren't doing anything with it. Finally, information about origin of the series and where I got the title from can be found on my profile.**

"Man, I can't wait to wrestle again!" Jeff said for about the millionth time that night. About nine months ago he had injured his back in a match against Randy Orton. His injury had worsened until it reached the point where he couldn't even walk. He had then gone through surgery and months of painful therapy until finally last week he returned to attack Orton, with the help of Matt and Shawn. Now he was just waiting to go out to the ring to do a promo that would set up for a match later that night- his first match since his return.

Matt laughed. "I can't wait either, but seriously, stop saying that!" Matt could understand his brother's enthusiasm; after all he hadn't wrestled in nine months either, since he was looking after his brother while he was injured. Still, as much as he loved his brother, he could only listen to him repeat himself for so long before it really started to annoy him.

"Sorry, Matt," Jeff chuckled. "It's just…" His voice trailed off. How was Jeff supposed to describe what he was feeling? There was a time when he didn't even think he would be able to walk again, let alone wrestle, and here he was, about to set up his first match in months. There weren't words that could describe how he felt.

Matt just grinned at him. "I know," he said quietly. And he did. He was there with his brother throughout the whole ordeal; he knew how Jeff was feeling right now, since it was extremely similar to what he was feeling.

"Matt, Jeff, you two are going out in five," one of the stagehands said, interrupting their conversation.

"Thanks," Jeff called to her as she walked away. He stood up and stretched slightly. "Guess we should head over there then."

The two of them made their way over to the gorilla position. To their surprise, Shawn was already waiting there. "Hey, Shawn," Matt said as they walked up. "Are you going out there with us?"

"Yeah, Creative wants me out there tonight for the end of our feud with Orton, since they're going to put you two into that new storyline," he explained.

Jeff frowned. "What new storyline?" He asked. "I thought the two of us were just going to feud with Orton for a bit until they figured out where they were going to take this."

"I don't know, I assumed you two knew about this," Shawn said. "All I was told was that the three of us were going to stop things with Orton tonight, since I've feuded with him for long enough and you two were moving on to something else."

"Guess we'll find out when we go out there, then," Jeff said. "And we'll just bluff our way through everything tonight if we have to."

The three of them got the cue that they were going to be heading out in a matter of seconds. "Well, no time to worry about it now," Matt said as Jeff's music started up and the two of them ran out.

They took their time getting down to the ring, taking in the sounds of the arena chanting for them for the first time in months and just enjoying the feeling of finally being able to return to the business that they both loved. When they finally reached the ring they climbed onto the turnbuckles, playing up to the crowd and getting them going even more than they already were. After they climbed down they grabbed microphones and just stood in the center of the ring for a few seconds, listening to the "Hardy! Hardy!" chant that had started up, both of them grinning madly.

"Man, it feels good to be back!" Jeff said. The crowd started cheering madly again, but Jeff couldn't afford to waste anymore time waiting for them to calm down. "At first I never thought I was going to be here again, since my back was only getting worse and worse. Finally, when it reached the point where my legs couldn't support my weight and I was told I needed surgery and would never wrestle again." He laughed. "Obviously, that didn't happen. Thank you to my doctor for fixing me up, thank you to whoever in the locker room sent me the rainbow bear, since I got a good laugh out of it, and thank you to my awesome brother for just being there for me through all of this. Because of all of this, I am finally back!"

Matt laughed and picked up where Jeff left off. "Don't let my brother fool you; I was just there for moral support," he joked. "Seriously though, Jeff's thanked the people who've helped us outside the WWE, but there was someone here on Raw who kept fighting for us when we weren't here to fight for ourselves. So get out here, Shawn, so we can thank you properly!"

Shawn didn't come out right away; it was a few seconds before he finally appeared and unlike Matt and Jeff he didn't take his time coming down to the ring, though he tried his best not to act rushed. He walked right over to them after he climbed into the ring, acting like he was just glad to see two of his friends after so long and said quietly, "There's been a change of plans."

Jeff resisted the urge to roll his eyes; he couldn't break out of character or go off script in front of the crowd. "Does this have anything to do with the new storyline?"

"I don't know. Someone just caught me on my way out and told me that we need to hurry things up," Shawn said. Matt tried to cover up a laugh; the words didn't quite seem to fit with the smile Shawn was wearing in an attempt to act like nothing was out of the ordinary. "Vince is coming out instead of Orton, though."

"Why is-?" Matt started to ask, but Shawn cut him off.

"I don't know, but we can't waste anymore time. Just start off like we were going to, then follow my lead." Shawn walked over to the side to grab a microphone before rejoining them in the center of the ring.

"Shawn we just wanted to thank you for everything you've done for us while we were out," Jeff said after Shawn was ready. "You have no idea how great it was to know that there was someone back here holding down the fort for us, so to speak."

"Though I have to admit, when we saw you coming out here that first week we were a bit confused. After all, why would you be sticking up for us? But still, like Jeff said, it was just nice to see someone defending us back here," Matt continued where Jeff had left off.

Shawn chuckled. "Well, like I kept telling Orton week after week I always knew you were coming back," he explained. "I'm a bit touchy about people saying that no one can return from a back injury. Besides, it's not like it was too much work fighting him."

The crowd laughed and even Matt and Jeff grinned, though mostly to keep in character. They knew that they were quickly approaching the time when Vince was supposed to come out, but they had no idea what would happen once they reached that point.

"Now Shawn, we know that you're supposed to have a match against Orton tonight but see, you aren't the only one with a score to settle against him," Jeff said. "And we know you've been having problems with Jericho as well."

"The real reason we wanted you out here was to ask if you would let us take care of things tonight," Matt continued. "We were thinking a tag team match- the Hardyz against Orton and Jericho, maybe?" The crowd went wild, excited at the prospect of seeing a match like that, but the people in the ring had to force grins. They knew that, chances were, that match wasn't going to happen and it didn't sit well with any of them.

"You know you don't have to do anything to pay me back," Shawn said. "But if you really want to fight them… why not?"

The audience's cheers were drowned out by the start of Vince McMahon's music. Most people wouldn't notice anything different about the chairman but the three men in the ring tell that he was worried about something, which in turn made them worried. Was he concerned about how well this would go when Matt and Jeff didn't know what was going on or was he worried about how well they would receive the news of their storyline, if that was why he was out there?

"Now, first off I want to congratulate you, Jeff, on your recovery," he began. Jeff nodded slightly to acknowledge what he said, but said nothing. "I'll admit that when I first heard about your injury I didn't think I'd ever see you wrestle again. Unfortunately, tonight you will not be wrestling. In fact, neither you nor your brother will be in matches tonight."

Even with his microphone Jeff was barely heard above the boos of the crowd. "And why the hell not?" he yelled. Matt didn't say anything, but he was still furious. They had both expected to have a match that night, their first in over nine months. Why weren't they fighting?

Shawn touched Jeff and Matt gently on the shoulder. "Calm down you two," he said quietly. "There's going to be a good explanation for this. Just finish what we're out here for and figure things out later."

"Well, see, this mainly has to do with you, Jeff," Mr. McMahon said. "There have been some concerns about whether or not your back can handle the strain of wrestling in a match."

"So you're saying that I'm not going to be allowed to wrestle anymore?" Jeff asked. He was beyond just being angry. This was not the grand return he had envisioned during his months of recovery.

"No, that's not what I'm saying. You can still wrestle, you just won't have a match tonight," Mr. McMahon corrected. "No, the health concerns are more about how your back will handle some of your signature moves, mainly the Swanton Bomb, the Whisper in the Wind, and the Twist of Fate. So it was suggested that you be forbidden from doing these moves- and any other high risk maneuvers- until we could figure out how much damage they could cause."

Jeff was stunned. They couldn't stop him from doing his moves, they couldn't do that. Those moves defined who he was as a wrestler. They couldn't stop him. "And what if I don't intend to listen to you?" He asked.

"Well, if you do perform one of those moves, then you're fired!"

Oh. That was a good way to stop him from doing them, since now that the threat had been made they would have to follow through with it if he did do one of those moves. They had thought of everything and had him cornered. He finally asked the one question that was on his mind. "Why? Why the hell would you come up with something like this?" It might not have been strictly in character, but at that point he didn't care. He wanted answers and he wanted them now.

"Oh, I didn't come up with this." Vince said smugly.

"What do you mean you didn't come up with this?" Matt asked.

"Just what I said- this wasn't my idea. I didn't come up with this."

"Then who did?" Matt asked. "Shane? The new GM you've been talking about? Stephanie?" He tacked Mr. McMahon's daughter onto the end. She hadn't been publicly involved with the business recently, but he knew that she was in charge of the creative end of things. He was hoping that this would just be the new storyline they were talking about, in which case they could complain to her in hopes of having her change it.

"No, it wasn't any of their ideas either," Mr. McMahon said. "No, this idea was suggested by one of your coworkers, a WWE wrestler!"

Matt and Jeff stared at each other. One of their coworkers? He had to be kidding. They couldn't think of anyone who hated them enough to suggest this as a plot. Sure, people would do crazy things to get ahead in the company, but that was usually behind the scenes. No one would come up with an entire storyline to try to ruin Jeff's career.

"Who exactly came up with this?" It was Shawn who spoke, the only one among them who could still talk in character and without blowing up at their boss.

"I'm not going to tell you," Vince said. "But I'll make you an offer- I'll give you two months to try to figure it out, Jeff. Have Matt help you if you want, though his moves aren't banned. In two months, at Wrestlemania, if you can tell me who suggested this I'll give you a shot at any title you want."

The crowd was cheering; for the first time that night they liked what Mr. McMahon was saying. Jeff, on the other hand, was more reserved. "And what if I don't figure it out?" He asked cautiously.

Vince grinned evilly. "Well, if you can't figure it out, then the ban on your moves will become permanent!"

XXXXX

"What the hell was that!?" Jeff yelled once they were backstage. "Please, tell me that none of that was true! Tell me that that wasn't the new storyline I'm being put in!"

"Jeff, you have to calm down," Matt said.

"Calm down? Calm down!? Did you not just hear what Vince said out there? How the hell am I supposed to be calm after that?" Jeff didn't know what to think anymore. He was still shocked, completely reeling from the ultimatum that Mr. McMahon had given him. Two months to figure everything out and he couldn't use any of his moves during that time?

"Just because you weren't told about this ahead of time doesn't mean that there aren't more plans for this storyline than what they told you out there," Shawn reminded him.

"Jeff, Vince wants to talk to you-" Jeff was walking away before he had even heard the entire message, fully intent on getting all the information he could on what he had been told out there. He was planning on marching into Mr. McMahon's office and demanding to know what was going on.

He wrenched open the door to Vince's office and stopped. The room was in a state of semi-chaos. He recognized several writers in the room, as well as Stephanie McMahon and the WWE's trainer. He stood in the doorway for a few seconds, just staring at the scene. It wasn't until Matt and Shawn showed up and pushed him inside the room that Vince even noticed him.

"Ah, Jeff, come in, sit down," he said, motioning to an empty chair. Jeff sat down as Mr. McMahon continued talking. "I'm sorry everything's so chaotic right now, but we have a bit of a problem on our hands."

Jeff tried to act calm; after all, the problem wasn't necessarily connected to his storyline. "A problem, sir?

"Yes. You see, your new storyline was a last minute decision, which is why you weren't informed about it ahead of time," Vince began. "The idea was brought to my attention a bit late, but we decided to go ahead with it anyway. Unfortunately, no one is admitting to having come up with the idea. The only thing we know about it is what I told you out there tonight, all of which was true, including the part about a coworker inspiring it- or at least that's what it said on the paper it was written on.

"So you have a couple of options now. Your first option is to stick this through all the way and we'll have someone write out a full storyline for you to follow. Option two is to cut this off before Wrestlemania. Some of the writers think we can pull off having you do a Swanton, then getting half the roster to threaten to quit if I fire you. I'm not completely sold on the idea though, so I would like to avoid that route as much as possible."

"What would you suggest doing then?" Matt asked before Jeff could say something. He knew that his brother wasn't thinking straight and he understood that, but he didn't know how well Mr. McMahon would handle Jeff yelling at him outside the ring.

"I would suggest playing this out without a script," Mr. McMahon said. "Having Jeff and you actually try to see if you can figure out who suggested the storyline. I'll be looking into it as well, of course. If you figure out who it is then we'll write out a new storyline so you can feud with them. Worst case scenario we get someone to agree to have this pinned on them so we won't have to permanently ban your signature moves. Of course you wouldn't be able to use those moves for the next two months, but I was serious about giving you a title shot if you lasted that long."

Jeff thought about it for a moment. He didn't like the idea of not being able to do any of his moves, and consequently loosing quite a few matches in the next month, but it would be interesting to see how this played out and to work without the confines of a finished storyline. He also desperately wanted to find out who was actually behind everything and this was the only way he would be able to do that. Finally, he nodded. "Alright," he said. "We'll do it your way."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the wrestlers or WWE officials, I just wish I did.**

**A/N: So here you go, as promised, the next chapter. Sorry it's a bit later than what I told you guys, but I've been absolutely swamped with other things for the past week and the week before that I was on vacation.**

"So how exactly are you planning to find out who suggested this storyline?" Matt asked. He was sitting in the hotel room he was sharing with his brother, half watching TV and checking his email on his laptop. "It's already Thursday and you haven't done anything." Truth be told, Matt was rather confused as to why Jeff had agreed to do things Mr. McMahon's way. He had put up such as fuss when the storyline was first revealed that Matt was at a loss as to why his brother would agree to do the entire thing unscripted.

Jeff just shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "I hadn't really thought about that when I agreed to do things this way."

Matt sighed; this was going to harder than he thought. "Why don't you start by making a list of people who could be behind this?" He suggested. "I'll even help you if you want."

"Alright." Jeff grabbed the pad of paper and pen that were near the phone. "Who's first on this list?"

Matt thought about it for a moment. Who indeed? Which one of their coworkers would actually come up with something like this and then manage to get it put into place as a new storyline? Finally he said, "Jericho."

"How so?" Jeff asked, not writing the name down right away. "I know he's not the best guy on the roster right now but you're going to have to give me a reason. I mean, I'm not just going to Shawn or Hunter, for example, just because you tell me to!"

"Actually, now that you mention it, put Shawn and Hunter- or at least Shawn- on the list too," Matt said. "They were worried about whether it was smart for you to wrestle or not."

"So?"

"So you have to keep in mind that this may not have been done to hurt you, but to keep you safe," Matt explained patiently.

"Does that mean that you're a suspect since you're always so worried about me?" Jeff was mostly joking but he also was curious as to whether matt thought that literally anyone, no matter how close he was to them, could be behind this.

Matt just laughed. "Sure, I guess," he said. "Thought I'll tell you now, I swear I didn't set any of this up."

"I know, don't worry," Jeff reassured him.

"But don't listen to anyone else when they tell you that."

Jeff snorted. "Alright, Matt, sure, whatever," he muttered. "So Shawn and Hunter are on the list, but why Jericho? You never did say why you suspect him."

"Well, before they had Shawn feud with Orton in order to defend you while you were out he was feuding with Jericho. It was a popular feud and the creative team was really pushing it. Jericho was ready to add 'retired Shawn Michaels' to his resume when suddenly you're gone and Shawn moves on to work with Orton," Matt explained.

"I don't follow," Jeff interrupted. "I can understand him being a bit pissed, but this seems like he would be angrier at the writers than at me."

"That's because I'm not done explaining things yet," Matt said. "So anyway, Jericho gets pushed off to the side and is only really added in much later just to keep the storyline going, not because he's actually needed. Then you come back. Everyone still loves you and creative was going to give you a huge push anyway and once again Jericho would have been pushed aside."

"Wait, so are you saying that you think that he blames me for getting injured- though I'll admit it is partially my fault- which forced creative to change their plans and ruin his moment of glory?" Jeff asked. He thought he understood where his brother was coming from but it was still a slightly far-fetched theory.

"Yes. It's a possibility, you know," Matt told him. "And you can't overlook anything if you want to find out what's going on."

Jeff sighed and rolled his eyes, but wrote down Jericho's name anyway. "Who else could secretly be an evil mastermind determined to ruin my life?" He asked sarcastically.

"Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase," Matt said after thinking about it for a moment. He didn't show any signs of hearing the sarcasm in his brother's voice.

Jeff nodded; those names at least made some sense to him. "I'm assuming because they're young, second-generation wrestlers who were doing good- and want to continue being pushed- but are now being overlooked because creative wants to push us in the tag team division?"

"Yeah, that's basically what I was thinking," Matt said. "And add Maria to that list as well."

"Maria? Matt, there's no way Maria's behind this!" Jeff protested. This was going a bit too far, in his opinion. There was no way he was going to write down Maria, of all people, until he had a pretty damn good reason for doing so.

"I'm not trying to say that she did this intentionally, but you know how she can talk," Matt explained patiently. "Isn't it possible that the wrong person overheard her worrying about how you were doing? You know how she is when one of her coworkers gets injured…"

Jeff scowled, but silently- and grudgingly- admitted that his brother may have point. Maria did talk to anyone who would listen and she did tend to worry about her coworkers when they got injured. Often the two things would get combined; Jeff had listened to her talk about how she was worried about someone many times. Her name got added to the list as well.

"I think this is enough," Jeff said. "Vince is going to give me ten or so minutes each week to talk about whatever progress I'm making in this search and how I'm trying to solve this. So if you count Shawn and Hunter as one and Rhodes and DiBiase as one then that would make four times we could question people during our brief segment."

"And use the other four weeks to do what?" Matt asked.

"Well if we ask around the locker room during the week we could talk about that during those four segments," Jeff suggested. "Do you think that would work?"

Matt thought about it for a moment before saying, "I think it would. It would just require getting quite a bit of information from the others during the week and then sifting through everything to see if we found out anything useful. Of course there's always the chance that we won't have enough to talk about, but I don't think that's going to happen."

"Not to mention we'll still have to keep the audience entertained somehow," Jeff said, almost to himself.

"That too," Matt admitted. He sighed. "This isn't going to be easy at all."

XXXXX

"So I was thinking maybe a missed RKO followed by a Twist of Fate…" It was the Saturday after Jeff's new storyline began. Jeff was with Orton trying to come up with a good ending to their match, which was supposed to be the main event for the upcoming Raw show. "Then I'll climb up to the top turnbuckle and-"

"And what?" Randy interrupted. "You can't do a Swanton for the next 8 weeks, Jeff, or did you forget?"

Jeff blinked slowly. He had forgotten about the second side of his currently storyline. He had been so wrapped up in trying to figure out how to find out who set everything up that he had completely forgotten that if he did any high risk maneuver he would have to be "fired". "Oh yeah," he finally said. "So what do you propose we do instead?"

"I like your idea so far, but what about as soon as you reach the top turnbuckle I know you off or something?" He suggested.

"I'm assuming that I'm supposed to act like I suddenly realized the restrictions placed on me and hesitate for long enough so you can come up and attack me?" Jeff asked.

"It would be perfect if you did," Randy said.

Jeff nodded. He didn't like the idea but then again, he never liked having to lose any important matches. He knew, though, that it would be like this for the next eight weeks and he tried to mentally prepare himself for it. He was going to be losing a lot of matches leading up to Wrestlemania and there wasn't anything he could do about it except just weather through it and hope for the best.

XXXXX

_Hello amigos!_ Matt typed, taking advantage of the fact that the hotel room was, for once, actually quiet to type up another MySpace blog.

_So most of you have probably already seen what happened on Monday, but just in case you didn't here's a brief recap: Jeff is currently banned from using any high-risk maneuvers under threat of being fired. Furthermore, this idea was suggested by a coworker of ours. Now Jeff and myself have until Wrestlemania to try to figure out who's behind this. If we do, Jeff gets a shot at any title he wants but if we don't the ban becomes permanent. _

_At this point I actually think Jeff's handling this better than I am. He's calm and collected- though that might just be because it hasn't quite sunken in yet, though once it does hit him he's just going to be a complete mess. Jeff- and I- know that those high risk maneuvers define him as a wrestler. If he can't do them his entire arsenal is just completely destroyed and that's going to be a hard hit from him. _

_On the other hand, I'm not handling it well _now_. I'm worried about him, about how he's going to handle it later, about how we're going to solve this, about what will happen if we don't or if he does a Swanton anyway. Hopefully as time goes on things will get easier to handle, though for some reason I doubt that._

_This certainly wasn't the return Jeff and I had planned on making, but nevertheless you can't deny that it has been a memorable week. I'll keep you updated on what's going on, but if you watch Monday Night Raw every week you'll see us there giving you updates on the show as well. _

_Adios and thanks for your support during this. _

Matt posted the blog and sighed. The post didn't really seem like it fit for some reason. Maybe it was just the phrasing but there was still something about it that wrong, like he had deliberately lied to his fans, though he couldn't find a place where he did. He sighed again and tried to push the thought from his mind. He quickly pulled up his email, deciding to just check his messages quickly before turning in for the night.

At first glance it seemed like all of his emails were from friends and family who had seen Monday's show and wanted to know what was going on. Matt took a couple of minutes to reply to a few of them, but didn't get through all of the emails; he didn't particularly feel like typing the same general message over and over again, not when he was so tired. It wasn't until he was about to close the window down that he noticed an email tucked in amongst the others that didn't seem to be about Jeff's "storyline". His curiosity got the better of him and he quickly opened the message and began to read.

_Hey Matt, I know you don't really check out those pro wrestling news sites, but I saw this on one of them and decided to send it to you._

_**INSIDE INFO ON NEW HARDY STORYLINE**_

_**Inside information on the new storyline that Jeff Hardy has been put in seems to suggest that it wasn't intended to be put in effect. Reports indicate that not only did neither Hardy brother know of the new storyline before they appeared on Raw, but after they went backstage it was revealed that the storyline had been smuggled in amongst the others and was actually created by one of their coworkers. However, beyond what was revealed on Monday, nothing else is known about where this is heading. Backstage it is also thought that Jeff, Matt, and Mr. McMahon will not be using a script the remainder of the storyline. Jeff and Matt have also gotten permission to try to find out who suggested the storyline.**_

_You told me about what was going on, but I thought you said that no one else knew the truth about the storyline and that you were only going to be telling people when you started asking them questions. I could be wrong though, but I thought you'd like to see this anyway, in case someone is leaking information about this, since I know you said that Vince didn't want any of the details leaking out._

Matt had to read through the email a couple of times before it actually registered in his mind. It was true that Vince hadn't wanted the details to get out; he had basically threatened the writers to keep the information to themselves, though they did that for most storylines anyway. He knew that Jeff hadn't told anyone, he certainly hadn't, and he doubted that Shawn did, except maybe Hunter- though Matt knew that Hunter wouldn't tell anyone either. That meant that someone was listening in on their meeting with Vince- or the person who gave them the information was the same person who suggested the storyline.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own… well, anything

**Disclaimer: I don't own… well, anything.**

**A/N: I've been reading Sherlock Holmes recently, which may explain certain aspects of this story in general, though I don't know how much that's showing through in my writing. In any case, if my style appears to change slightly at more mystery-oriented parts, I do apologize. **

Jeff stared at his brother, not quite sure what to say after the story Matt had told him. Someone had listened to their conversation with Mr. McMahon? That didn't quite seem possible, since they would've been noticed by someone. The only other option though was that the person who suggested the plot had purposefully given the information to the site. He explained his train of thought to Matt and asked, "But why would he do that? It doesn't make sense!"

Matt shrugged. The only reason he could think of was that, whoever this person was, they _really_ wanted to destroy Jeff's career and making the information public was the perfect way to do this. He didn't tell his brother this though; Jeff was looking pretty frazzled right now and he didn't want to upset him anymore than he already was. "I don't know," he lied. "The real question is what are we going to do now?"

It was Jeff's turn to shrug. "There's not really much we can do about it now," he pointed out. "I mean, we could tell Vince if you really wanted to, but considering how the details are going to spread like wildfire after Monday anyway I don't really think it matters if we tell him or not."

Matt nodded; it was true that in about two days everyone backstage would know and then it wouldn't really matter anymore. "I just wish there was someway to know who sent them that information!" He muttered. "All the webmaster would tell me was that it was someone in the business who's been sending them information for awhile, though honestly I don't even think they know who it is exactly."

Jeff sighed. Although he hadn't said anything about it, like his brother he had hoped that the webmaster of the wrestling news site might have been able to give them some sort of clue or hint about who could've sent the email; it would've made the job they were starting on Monday a lot easier. As it was they couldn't do anything but ask questions around the locker room in hopes that, somehow, they could find out who was guilty.

The rest of the weekend passed slowly. Both brothers were impatient to get to the arena on Monday and actually start trying to figure things out. They had gone home early Sunday morning and were taking one of the latest flights out to the next Raw show so they could spend as much time at home as possible. The two of them had ended up hanging out at Jeff's house for the day, trying to distract themselves in a million different ways but nothing was working.

Eventually both brothers ended up settling down with books, a tribute to how desperate they were to find something to do that would actually distract them, since both Matt and Jeff could easily name two dozen things they would rather have been doing. However, none of those activities had succeeded in actually distracting them and so they were stuck with what was possibly their last choice of ways to spend an afternoon.

They had been reading for about half an hour in relative silence, both of them surprisingly intent on their reading, when Matt happened to glance up and look at his brother, only to let out a short bark of laughter. Jeff jumped when he heard the noise and glared at Matt, who only held up his book in answer.

Jeff stared at the book for a moment, looked down at the one he was holding in his own hands, chuckling quietly to himself. Apparently even while reading they couldn't escape Jeff's current predicament for they had both found and started to read Jeff's old Sherlock Holmes books.

XXXXX

"So how exactly is this going to work?" Matt asked as they walked into the arena a couple hours before Monday's show was supposed to start.

"We should probably split up and talk to different people before the show starts," Jeff said. "Explain the situation to them and ask them if they would have any idea who suggested the storyline. Even just suspicions or theories would be fine at this point. Then we'll meet up in catering about forty five minutes before we need to go out so we can sift through the info a little bit."

Matt frowned. "That's not a lot of time to go through the information, get ready for the show, and make it over in time to go out," he pointed out.

Jeff sighed. "No, it doesn't, but the worst case scenario is that we just don't get through all of the information in time," he said. "So, do you have any suggestions for how we decide who's going to talk to whom?"

"One takes the divas the other takes all the guys?" Matt suggested. "You know how some of the girls can talk; it'll probably take as long to talk to them as it will to talk to the guys, not to mention we'll probably get more information from them."

Jeff laughed, but his brother was right. The guys may find it amusing that their coworkers were interrogating them, but once they were told the whole story most of them would help in anyway that they could; this business may have been a hard one, but whoever was behind this had gone too far and no one would let him get away with that. The divas, on the other hand, would worry and mother over Jeff, not to mention talk about anything they thought was relevant. It would be rather hard to deal with them- and sort through the large amount of "information" they gave.

"Who's going to have the pleasant task of talking to the divas then?"

"I'll talk to them," Matt offered. "Only because if you try to they'll just mother over you and we won't get any information out of them!"

Jeff laughed again, but chose not to reply to his brother's comment. Instead, he pointed out the fact that they were "wasting valuable interrogation time" while they were just standing there talking and that they should probably start talking to their coworkers to get as much information as possible before they needed to go out to the ring later that night. So the two of them split up, with Jeff heading towards the locker room to talk to some of the other guys, while Matt heading towards catering to see if any of the divas were hanging out there, since he couldn't just walk into their locker room.

Luckily for Matt both Mickie and Maria were in catering when he walked in, though in all honesty Matt wasn't sure whether to be thankful or not. It was going to be hard enough trying to get information out of the divas as it was; he really didn't want to have to try to deal with two of them at once. Still, if it helped Jeff figure everything out then he would go through with this.

He forced a smile and walked over to the two girls. "Hey," he said casually. "Mind if I interrupt for a moment?"

"Not at all!" Maria said. "We were just talking about you and Jeff, actually. I can't believe they forced that storyline on him- and without you two knowing about it ahead of time!"

"Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about." Matt cut in before Maria could continue talking. "See, well, it's a bit more complicated than them just forcing the storyline on us."

Mickie frowned. "What do you mean?" she asked.

Matt had to admit that the one advantage of talking to the two of them together was that he would only have to tell the story once, not twice. "Well, it turns out that someone snuck the storyline in with the others so Vince assumed that it meant to be there and decided to start it," he explained. "But then he realized that not only was it not supposed to be there but the writers weren't even the ones who put it there."

"Wait, if the writers didn't put it in with the other ideas how did it get there?"

Matt sighed. "Apparently one of our coworkers came up with the idea." He heard Maria gasp and, after smothering a small chuckle, continued his explanation. "So we have a bit of a problem now. Since none of the writers came up with the idea, Vince doesn't think it would be a good idea for them to continue it, but the storyline has to continue through to Wrestlemania. So we're looking for information from our coworkers to see if we can't figure out who it is before Wrestlemania, so we don't need to find someone else to lay the blame on. We also need the info because Vince is giving us some time each week to talk about what our findings- or possibly lack thereof- and we'll need something to talk about during that time."

"Oh my god!" Maria gasped. "That's horrible!"

"I hope you find out who did this," Mickie said. "I can't believe one of our own coworkers would do something like this! Do you have any suspects or theories right now?"

"We have a few suspects," Matt said, but didn't elaborate on it anymore; he didn't want to tell Maria that she was on their list, even if they didn't think she did it intentionally. "I was wondering though, if you knew anything about this, or had suspicions or theories about anyone."

Matt jotted down names and notes on a sheet of paper as the two girls rambled on about the many people they thought could be behind it, theories as to why they would do it, and anything else they thought was relevant. He sighed, shifted his weight slightly, and reminded himself that it was for Jeff. Still, it was going to be a long night.

Unlike his brother Jeff didn't have to listen to endless chatter about what was most likely completely unimportant information. He may have had to explain his story more often than Matt did but he got more accurate information and managed to talk to more people than him as well. Still, by the time he finished talking to his fifth or so person he too was getting fairly annoyed with the whole business. He kept reminding himself that it had to be done, that everyone needed to be talked to at _some_ point, but all he wanted to do was just stop for the night and relax for a bit before he needed to go out for his small part in the show, and then later for his match against Orton.

He sighed as he heard the locker room door open again. That meant that there was someone else he needed to talk to and one more time he needed to tell his story that night. He turned around and was pleasantly surprised to see Hunter walking in. "Hey, Hunter," he said. "I need to talk to you for a moment."

"This about the storyline?" Hunter asked as he set his bag down.

Jeff nodded. "Yeah. Did Shawn tell you about it?"

"Nope," Hunter said. "I tried to get him to, but he told me that I'd have to ask you about it if I wanted to know, since he wasn't sure if you wanted a lot of people to know the details. I'm guessing it's not anything good, though?"

Jeff sighed. Why couldn't Shawn have just saved him a bit of trouble and told Hunter anyway? Both him and Matt trusted Hunter; they wouldn't have had a problem with him knowing the details. "No, the whole thing is just a mess," he muttered. He gave Hunter the condensed summary that he had all but memorized by this point.

Hunter's eyes had narrowed as Jeff told his story and by the time he was done it was obvious that Hunter was furious. "Whoever's behind this went too far," he growled. "What can I do to help? Need anyone taken care of?"

Jeff laughed, which startled the other wrestler slightly. "Calm down, Hunter," he said. "All I need right now is information. Matt and I are going to be working on this, though if you want to help sort through information you're welcome to help." He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw a small grimace on his face at the thought of going through information for who knows how long.

"Eh, I'm busy right now, but maybe later," Hunter said casually. Jeff smothered a laugh; yes, Hunter definitely did not want to go through information. He did give Jeff a fairly good list of people, theories, and suggestions for how to continue their investigation, which Jeff thanked him for before hurrying off to catch up with his brother.

Matt was in catering when he arrived, though he was still in conversation with a few of the divas, but when he saw Jeff walk in he quickly finished talking to them and joined his brother. "I don't care if you won't get to talk to as many of them. You are dealing with the divas next time we do this!" He hissed, glaring at the fairly happy look his brother had on his face.

"Fine by me," Jeff said. "If it means I won't have to repeat the same story over and over again. That's really the only thing that annoyed me- constantly having to retell the same story!"

Matt chuckled, all traces of his previous annoyance gone. "So, what did you find out?" he asked.

The two of them spent the next half hour or so sorting through the information they had gotten, discussing which bits were most likely to be true and what leads would be best for them to follow. It was a long, tedious task, but they had managed to get enough solid information to get them through the night.

"The one thing that bothers me about all of this is that neither Hunter or Maria really seem like they could've done this, even unintentionally," Jeff remarked as they started walking back to the locker room to get ready for their little bit in the show. "I mean, I guess it's possible, but I dunno. It's the same with Shawn- he wouldn't even tell Hunter the details out of respect for me; I doubt he would've talked to people about my injury where others could overhear."

"I'll concede on Hunter and Shawn, but I'm still not sure about Maria," Matt said. "I mean, she'll talk to anyone which means that she could've unknowingly talked to someone who then passed the information along." He shook his head. "We'll figure this out later. Right now we just need to get ready to go out there and hope that once we're out there we'll be able to bluff our way through the night."


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: You should know this by now, but I own nothing, only the few OC's that randomly appear in this story

**Disclaimer: You should know this by now, but I own nothing, only the few OC's that randomly appear in this story. **

**A/N: So I'm going to be really busy in the upcoming week, which means that I'll have less time to write the next chapter, unfortunately. Hopefully I'll be able to post it late next week, or next weekend, but it may end up being posted the following week. Sorry!**

"Where were you two? You're going out in a few minutes and we've been trying to find you for the past ten!" An employee that Jeff recognized as Mark Greene snapped as the two brothers walked over to wait until they needed to head out.

"Sorry Mark. We were busy and had lost track of time. Won't happen again," Matt said.

Mark snorted. "Yeah, sure," he muttered as he walked away. "I've heard that one before…"

Jeff leaned in toward his brother slightly. "Do you think he's a suspect? He seemed fairly angry with me and ruining my career would be a good way to get revenge on me nearly worrying him to death each week." His voice was quiet, but completely serious, the slight grin on his face the only sign he was joking.

"No, if you had been paying close attention to his face you would've noticed that he wasn't as angry as he had led us to believe," Matt replied, choking back a laugh and also trying to keep his voice quiet.

Jeff finally burst out laughing. "Man, you've been reading too much Sherlock Holmes recently!" He said. "C'mon, picking up clues from his facial expressions? That's a bit too much detective work for me."

"Jeff, Matt, get over here so you can go out!" Mark yelled at them before Matt could reply to his brother.

Not even five seconds after they had reached Mark their music started up and it was time for them to head out. _We really were cutting it close today. We'll have to remember to give ourselves more time to get ready next time,_ Jeff thought as he followed his brother out to the top of the ramp. He didn't pay much attention to his standard routine on his way to- and once he reached- the ring; he was too busy trying to remember the information they had gotten, in hopes that he would be able to convincingly play everything by ear and not screw everything up.

He jumped off the turnbuckle, walked over to the side, and grabbed the microphone that was held out for him. He waited for Matt to join him in the center of the ring with his own microphone before he started to talk. "You know, when you're stuck at home for a couple of months, you tend to do a lot of thinking," he began. "For example, I thought about what it would be like when I could finally return to the ring and kick Orton's ass!" The crowd cheered and Jeff paused for a moment, listening to the support he was receiving with a small smile on his face. "As you know though, that's not exactly how everything worked out." Jeff turned slightly and motioned towards the Titantron where a video recap of what had happened to him last week was shown.

The crowd was booing loudly by the time the video was done and Matt had to choke back a small laugh before he continued speaking from where his brother had left off. "Vince, being his usual unhelpful self, has still refused to tell us anything else about the whole situation so Jeff and I have decided to take matters into our own hands and look into this ourselves."

Jeff grinned as he saw the list of notes his brother pulled from his pocket; he wouldn't have to do everything from memory after all. He grabbed the list from Matt and began scanning it. "Let's see what our fellow wrestlers think, shall we? Hmm… Jericho was overheard saying how much he hated me- though honestly, this is Jericho we're talking about; I think he hates everyone." He laughed and read the next note on the list. "Edge was upset I took him out of the Money in the Bank ladder match? C'mon, that was nearly two years ago!"

Jeff crumpled the list up into a ball and tossed into a corner of the ring. "Okay, I don't know who that information was from, but seriously, I think someone-" He turned slightly to jokingly glare at his brother. "-is going to need to sort through the information a little bit better before we come out here. I mean, come on, we aren't going to get anything done if we use outdated information!"

Matt chuckled. "Sorry, don't know how that ended up on the list," he said. "Though now that we're without any valid information to share with you guys, would you mind if we brought someone out to question?" The crowd cheered loudly, causing Matt to grin at the noise. "Guess that's a yes. So, how about whoever wants to come out and talk just come out now?"

There was a pause for a moment before the start of Orton's music was heard. Matt leaned closer to his brother and said, just loud enough for him to hear, "I arranged for him to come out earlier, in case we didn't have enough info. It's just going to be setting up for your match later tonight, since it hasn't been officially announced yet." Jeff nodded, but didn't answer.

It didn't take long for Orton to reach the ring and as soon as he had entered he said, "I'm not out here to help you two find the person who did this to you, but if I were it would only be so I could thank them!" He ignored the sounds of protest coming from the crowd and continued as if he didn't even hear them. "To be perfectly honest with you, they had a brilliant idea, taking away all of little Jeff's most effective moves- all out of concern for his health, of course."

The mocking, sarcastic tone in his voice obvious and it took everything Jeff had not to attack him then and there, despite the fact that he knew Randy was just playing his character. "You make it sound like it's something you would've come up with, Orton," he said, trying to keep his tone casual. He was carefully studying the man he would be facing later that night to see if he could pick up any hints that he might have been the one behind everything, though to be honest he wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to be looking for.

Randy frowned slightly, obviously picking up on the fact that Jeff honestly wanted to know if he came up with the idea. "If you're expecting me to break down and tell you that I'm behind it, you're about to be sorely disappointed, Hardy," he snapped. "I wasn't the one who came up with the idea, even if I do wish I had!"

Jeff couldn't tell whether Randy was lying or not, but he didn't let that discourage him. He took a step closer to Orton and said, "Though I'm sure you'd say that even if it was your idea." His voice was slightly colder now, but still relatively under control.

Matt stepped between the two of them as Randy scowled and started towards Jeff. "Now, now, you two, let's just stop for a moment and think about this."

"Back off, Matt, this doesn't concern you!" Randy snarled.

"Don't you dare talk to Matt that way!" Jeff yelled.

"And if it concerns Jeff, it concerns me!" Matt yelled as well.

The whole situation probably would've turned into a fight- not that any of them would've minded too much- when the sound of someone yelling over a microphone caused them to stop.

Standing at the top of the ramp was Vince McMahon, looking absolutely furious. "Stop it!" He yelled. "Damnit, I said stop it!" When he saw that the small group in the ring had actually stopped he continued talking. "Now, Jeff, Randy, I know you two have had… problems… in the past. Therefore, I think it's only fair if tonight it's Jeff Hardy against Randy Orton!" The crowd cheered at this announcement, causing Vince to smile smugly, looking extremely pleased with himself.

"Now, Matt," he continued once the noise had died down slightly. "Despite what you said earlier, what concerns Jeff does _not_ always concern you. You can continue to help your brother attempt to find out who suggested the idea to me, but you will not be involved in his match tonight. Instead, you will have a match of your own- against Umaga!"

Jeff jumped slightly at the news; he didn't know that Matt had had a match that night. He glanced over at his brother and saw that he wasn't surprised by the news, which only confirmed his suspicions that Matt knew about the match but didn't tell him. For a moment he was slightly upset that Matt hadn't told him about it, but he brushed those feelings aside. He had probably just been distracted and forgot to tell him about it; it wasn't anything to get worked up about.

As soon as they were back stage Matt turned to him, a sheepish smile on his face, and started to apologize. "Jeff, I'm sorry for not telling you I was fighting Umaga tonight. It was a last-minute thing and I was busy trying to help you interview people before we needed to go out there tonight…"

Jeff laughed, which seemed to startle his brother slightly. "Matt, calm down man, its fine," he said. "I know you were busy and besides, it's not like you always have to tell me everything. It's no big deal." He stretched, his back cracking slightly; although his back was completely healed it tended to become rather stiff if he stood for awhile without doing anything. "When's your match?" He asked.

"Right before yours," Matt answered.

"Then I'll go down there with you for your match and obviously stay there once it's done to fight Orton," Jeff told him.

"I'll stay for your match, too," Matt said. "Vince never said I couldn't be at ringside with you."

Jeff frowned. "Matt, you don't need to do that." It wasn't that Jeff didn't want his brother there, but Matt was going to be exhausted after fighting Umaga, especially since Jeff doubted that the match had been planned with him as the winner.

"I know, but I'm going to stay out there anyway," Matt said, his voice almost obnoxiously cheerful. Jeff scowled at him; he was starting to become frustrated with how his brother would always worry about him, but then seem to not care about himself at all. He didn't get a chance to point this fact out, though, because at that moment Orton came over and interrupted their conversation.

"Hey, can I talk to you two for a moment?" He asked. Without waiting for a reply he continued talking. "Look, I understand what you two are doing and, despite what I said out there, I honestly hope you find the guy because he definitely went too far, but you guys need to calm down a little. Not everyone's going to be happy with you interrogating them and all but accusing them of being behind this, but even that won't necessarily mean that they're guilty."

Jeff glared at him as he walked off, practically shaking with rage. "Calm down?" He hissed. "_Calm down!?_ He has no idea what the past week has been like for me and he's trying to tell me that I need to calm down a little!"

Matt was sorely tempted to tell his brother that he _did_ need to calm down- because at this point he honestly did- but he knew that the words would only upset and anger Jeff even more. Unfortunately he didn't know what he was supposed to tell Jeff at this point, so he let him continue his angry rant for a little while longer. Finally his brother paused for a moment, allowing Matt the opening he needed to ask, "Are you done yet or do you still have more to say?"

"Shut up, Matt!" Jeff snapped. Matt took a step back, slightly hurt and more than shocked at the anger in his brother's voice. Jeff noticed this and froze. "Oh god, Matt, I'm so sorry!" He said quietly. "I didn't mean to snap at you! It's just… the past week has been rough and we still don't know anything and then Orton comes along and I guess I just snapped- literally." He smiled weakly at Matt, trying to dispel some of the awkwardness that had settled between them.

Matt smiled at his brother; although he was still a bit hurt by Jeff's reaction he could understand why he had snapped and didn't really blame him for it. "Its fine, Jeff," he said. "No big deal." He repeated the words Jeff had said to him earlier, though in a paraphrased version, hoping that, like his brother earlier, he sounded like the whole matter didn't bother him at all. And, again just like Jeff earlier, he quickly turned the conversation away from their current topic. "So we still have some time left before our matches and I was thinking…"

XXXXX

The Hardys stumbled backstage after Jeff's match, both of them more tired and exhausted than they would like to admit. Most of Matt's match had been dominated by Umaga and, while everything was planned and carefully pulled off, it still hurt like hell to go through with the match. While Jeff's match against Orton had been more of a back and forth fight between the two of them the ending was still painful.

He had climbed up to the top turnbuckle as planned. Matt had quickly caught on with what was going to be happening and he was frantically yelling at Jeff to get down and not risk his career. In the background Jeff could hear JR and Lawler commentating in the background, asking the usual questions- what he was doing, if he was going to do a Swanton, was he risking his career?- and with Orton just starting to get up the scene was nearly a perfect recreation of the night he had made his back injury even worse.

Jeff's thought had started to wander back to that night and he found himself wondering whether it would be worth it to do a Swanton or, if like that night, it would only cause more trouble than it was worth. He hadn't been paying close attention to what was going on until Orton was in front of him and he was pushed back off the turnbuckle. Normally he would've made sure to land a certain way so he wouldn't get hurt but he was distracted and instead the fall was more painful than it should've been.

Although he knew going into it that the match was going to end with Orton coming out as the victor he still didn't like it. He _really_ didn't like it, especially not with Matt losing right before him. It didn't sit well with him that the Hardyz should both lose in separate matches in the same night, but unfortunately it seemed like it would be like that for awhile. Matt had told him earlier that there was a chance that he would be starting a small feud with Vince, which means that Matt would be put in more matches against people like Umaga or else have be at a disadvantage during the match, all of which would result in him losing.

Jeff knew that he needed to get use to the idea of neither of them winning for awhile but he didn't want to. He didn't want to just calmly accept their defeats like he was supposed to be calm about everything else that was happening. No, like everything else he was going to fight through it.

Just because he had to lose in the ring didn't mean he had to accept defeat outside it.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Seriously, by this time you should know that I own nothing

**Disclaimer: Seriously, by this time you should know that I own nothing.**

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, I've been frantically trying to finish up last-minute summer homework (which I'm still not done with). So, it'll probably be a bit longer between updates, though the next chapter should come relatively soon. Also, as thanks to mcxhardyxgirl for her lovely reviews, I've included Orton in the list of suspects. :)**

For the next week Jeff spent all of him free time trying to piece together an idea of what could have happened. His hotel rooms were covered with various pieces of paper ranging from the notes from their original interviews to his own theories that he had jotted down on whatever paper he could lay his hands on at the time. Whenever they changed locations he would simply throw everything into the top of his suitcase, though it only remained in there long enough for him to settle down again, before it was thrown out and spread over the new room.

Several of his coworkers had made the mistake of trying to get into his room early in the week to ask him something. Jeff hadn't moved from where he was sitting on the floor, completely surrounded by papers, when they had knocked; instead, he had reached over from where he was to grab the handle and open the door, though he nearly fell over as it swung open. The people standing out there had taken one look at the state of things in the room and hadn't even bothered entering- they had merely asked him what they needed to and fled.

No one had even tried to enter his hotel rooms after than except Matt, though sometimes Jeff wished his brother would leave him alone as well. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy Matt's company, but it was harder to concentrate when he was constantly trying to talk to him or cracking jokes about the situation. Usual the jokes wouldn't have bothered him too much, but there were only so many times he could stand to hear Matt making fun of him for 'channeling Sherlock Holmes' before he just snapped.

"Look, Matt, it's not that I don't like having you around, but can you please just let me try to work on this?" Jeff asked, glancing up from his notes for the first time in quite awhile. He stretched his back out, an action which, at this point, was almost instinctive.

"What exactly are you trying to do?" Matt asked, trying to avoid answering Jeff's question. He wasn't going to leave his brother alone to sit and obsess over the question of who had done this to him and, since his attempts and starting conversations before had failed and Jeff obviously didn't want to hear anymore of his admittedly lame jokes, he fell back on his last plan- trying to get Jeff to talk to him about what he was thinking in hopes that the two of them might be able to make more headway than just Jeff had.

"Trying to figure out who wants to end my career- what else would I be doing?" Jeff said as he bent over again to jot down another note. He chuckled slightly. "Sorry, that's not exactly what you were talking about, were you?"

"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock," Matt said sarcastically. "Jeff, there's something wrong when you start to channel someone who technically doesn't exist!"

The faint smile on Jeff's face faded at his brother's words and was quickly replaced with a scowl. "I've already told you, I am _not_ channeling Sherlock Holmes!" He snapped.

Now it was Matt's turn to laugh. "First off, you're working on solving a mystery right now. You're in the middle of your most recent attempt at figuring things out and you're barely eating and sleeping, since you don't want to stop to deal with that. Don't bother trying to deny it," Matt said, seeing that Jeff was about to protest. "Have you looked in a mirror recently? You look like you're about to collapse from exhaustion."

Jeff sighed, realizing defeat when he saw it. "Fine, I haven't been sleeping a lot, mainly just before we have to do a show," he said. "But, for the record, I have been eating. I'm not stupid enough to starve myself, even unintentionally, not when I know I need to stay healthy if I want to wrestle."

"You still need to sleep more," Matt told him. He thought he heard Jeff mutter something that sounded suspiciously like "mothering hen" before he started talking again, but he wasn't sure. "Anyway, it looks like every piece of paper you have with you right now has been spread out all over the room while you work- which is strangely similar to what 221B Baker Street would look like if Sherlock Holmes was working on a case, isn't it? Not to mention your particular way of trying to figure this out…"

"Alright, I guess you have a point," Jeff interrupted. "But that does not mean I'm doing this intentionally! I swear I'm just trying to make some sense of what's going on."

"Speaking of which, what have you figured out so far?" Matt asked. He glanced down at the floor, looking for a free spot where he could sit so he could look at his brother's notes easier, but it seemed like every square inch was covered. He sighed and scooped up a pile of papers next to his brother, dumping them on the other side of him, before sitting down in the now-clear area.

"Not much," he admitted with a small sigh. "I'm working with the theory that Hunter and Shawn had nothing to do with this- even unintentionally. Like I told you Monday before the show, they really don't seem like they're the type that would talk to someone about this. And the problem with Maria is that, even if she did tell someone that she was worried about my injury the chances of her remembering who is going to be very slim."

"I still think that talking to Maria about this will help," Matt said. "Maybe we could do that on Raw on Monday."

Jeff thought about it for a moment. "I think we should talk to her ahead of time, though, so she has a little bit of time to think it over. It's not fair to her to make her go out there without some idea of what's going to be going on."

"Now that you mention it, we should probably do that for everyone," Matt said. "Especially since they'll need to know when they're going to need to go out to the ring."

"That's true; I didn't think about that. Still, I'm not sure if she's going to have enough relevant information to tell us without simply rambling," Jeff said. "What about having her come out first, then bringing out Jericho afterwards? You know the crowd's not going to be too interested in us talking with Maria, but Jericho has always been great at promos; bringing him out will get the crowd going and it'll make it long enough to actually be worthwhile."

"But then, including this past week, we'll have five weeks of just us talking and only three where we bring other people out to interview," Matt pointed out. "So unless you know of someone else that it would be worthwhile to talk to, I think we're just going to have to hope that the segment with Maria will be long enough."

"Well, I'm thinking that Orton might have something to do with this, but I don't know why. Nearly everyone we've talked to has mentioned him, but it's usually just because of his reputation for doing nearly anything to get to- and stay- at the top. Maybe he saw me as a threat? I honestly have no idea at this point, but I think it would be a good idea to talk to him anyway," Jeff said.

"That's not a bad idea, actually," Matt admitted. "I don't know why we didn't think about him before. Back to Hunter and Shawn, though- are we still going to talk to them on Raw, now that we know that there's really no chance that they had anything to do with this, and if not is there anyone else we can interview instead so we won't have to deal with the five weeks of just us talking?"

Jeff thought about it for a little while before answering, "I think if we bring them out strictly to interview them for information and not because we think they're guilty we'll be alright," he said slowly. "It would be the same type of thing we're doing with Maria on Monday- we don't think that she's specifically behind it, but she may have information that could be extremely important to us. We're going to have to be more careful with Hunter and Shawn, though; they're huge favorites with the crowd and we don't want to imply that we think that they're guilty."

Matt chuckled. "You have everything figured out, don't you?" He asked.

Jeff shook his head. "If I did I would already know who did this." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I've worked on this long enough. Anymore thinking and I'm just going to give myself even more of a headache." He stood up and stretched again, his back cracking rather loudly.

"How can you stand that?" Matt asked. "Your back always getting so stiff all the time, I mean." It was a question he had been meaning to ask his brother for awhile, but he had never gotten around to actually getting an answer.

Jeff shrugged. "I don't know. It doesn't really bother me, at least, not anymore. I mean, at first it was annoying and I couldn't bend over for as long as I can now without it hurting, but I barely notice it now." He chuckled slightly. "It's gotten to the point where I just automatically stretch after sitting down or bending over for awhile."

"So, what are you going to do now, if you don't mind me asking?" Matt hoped his brother would get caught up on his sleep since, but he doubted that was what his brother had in mind.

"I was thinking about dying my hair for Raw," he said. "I need something slightly calming to do and, knowing my luck, I'm either going to forget or not have enough time to do it later."

Matt smothered a laugh, but a huge grin spread across his face anyway. "Only you would find dying hair something relaxing to do," he said. He shook his head. "Well, I think I'm going to go find something to do that can actually be considered fun."

Although he couldn't be sure, he thought he heard Jeff laughing again as he pulled the door shut behind him.

XXXXX

"Wait, you want to interview me during your segment tonight?" Maria, who had been so trusting and eager to help the week before, glared at Matt and Jeff, looking slightly hurt and more than a little suspicious.

"Well, we know that you tend to be very concerned about people's health and, no offense, but when you start talking you'll talk about anything that comes to mind. We just wanted to know if you could think of anyone you might have talked to recently who you may have told that you were worried about how Jeff's back would be," Matt explained.

"It's not that we think you came up with it- in fact we honestly don't think this was your idea at all. We just thought that maybe you talked to someone that might not have my best interests at heart and were hoping that you could remember it and help us out by filling up some of the time we have on the show tonight," Jeff added, smiling reassuringly at the Diva.

Maria thought about it for a moment. "Fine," she finally said. "I'll think about it and hopefully I'll be able to come up with some information for you- though I'm not making any promises. You might want to bring someone else out too, you know."

Matt laughed slightly, though it had a humorless sound to it. "Don't worry. We're bringing Jericho out after you."

Maria grimaced. "I feel so sorry for you," she muttered. Matt and Jeff just laughed as they walked off to find Jericho, though they weren't looking forward to it. Rumor had it that he was in a bad mood that night and they had a feeling that convincing him to come out so they could talk to him on Raw that night would be a fairly difficult task.

They found him all but storming down the hallway where the locker room was. "Hey, Chris! Can we talk?" Jeff yelled to him as soon as he saw him.

Jericho stopped and turned around, his eyes narrowing slightly as he saw who was there. "Matt and Jeff. I should've known," he said with poorly concealed annoyance. "Look, I think I know why you two are here, so let's cut the explanation and just get down to it. You two want me to come out during your little segment on the show so you can interview me and accuse me of trying to end Jeff's career?"

Matt nodded, trying to hide his anger at the way the other man was talking to them. "Yeah, that's basically it." He tried to keep his voice casual. "So, will you come out?"

"Sure, why not?" Matt and Jeff stared at him. They were slightly thrown off by his answer; they had been expecting to have to convince and all but bribe him to come out and talk. Jericho obviously saw their confusion because he grinned and said, "I found out something that I think you two should know."

"What did you find out?" Jeff asked He was eager to have something, anything to look into and that showed through in his question.

Jericho continued to grin as he said, "No, you're just going to have to wait until later tonight. By the way, how exactly is that working? When do I need to go out?"

"About forty five minutes into the show Maria's going to be going out," Matt told him.

Jericho nodded. "So I'll come out towards the end of that, make it seem like I'm interrupting things."

"Yeah, that should be fine."

"Good," Jericho said. "Now, if you two don't mind there's someone I need to talk to." With that he turned around and walked away.

Jeff watched him leave, silently wondering what Jericho had found out. Was it something important, something that would actually help them? Was it nothing more than a rumor he had heard backstage, or a theory of his own? He shook his head. There was no way of knowing; he was just going to have to wait until Jericho told them later that night. He sighed. And there was still an hour and a half until the show even started…


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

**A/N: Ack, again, sorry for the delay! No good excuse except I've been delving into another fandom recently and I can't work in two fandoms at the same time. Eh… I'm not sure if I'm quite happy with how this turned out, but I figured I'd better update anyway, even if it is really short.**

Jeff paced backstage as he waited for the current match to end so he could go out, start that week's segment, and finally get the information he wanted out of Jericho. The last two hours had dragged on and no matter how hard he tried Jeff couldn't stop his mind from straying back to the thought of finally getting new information about what was going on.

Matt was leaning up against a nearby wall, content to silently watch his brother pace. He had tried to distract him earlier in the evening and he had tried to get him to stop pacing, but neither endeavor had exactly worked out that well- both of them had caused him to be snapped at and told to mind his own business, though not in those words, of course. After the second failed attempt he had simply given up; it was close enough to when they would have to go out that it didn't matter anymore anyway.

Kennedy stumbled backstage, having just won his match against William Regal. Jeff stopped his pacing when he saw him and got ready to head out, which would be as soon as Regal came backstage. There was a brief pause after Regal had walked back before their music hit and Jeff finally walked out into the arena, followed closely by his brother, who had a huge grin on his face, though he glared at Jeff to silently remind him not to rush things just so he could talk to Jericho.

Matt didn't need to worry, though. Jeff had gone from impatient and irritable to relaxed and acting like he had the time in the world in a split second. There was nothing different in his usual routine as he walked down the ramp, climbed into the ring, and posed on top of the turnbuckle before grabbing a mic and walking to the center of the ring.

"So, another week, another update on what we've found out," Jeff said. "Which, admittedly, isn't a lot. So how about we just bring out someone to interview now?"

Maria's music started playing and the Diva came out to a fairly good pop from the crowd. She had a huge grin on her face when as she walked down to the ring and Jeff was hoping that she was smiling because she had information for them, not just because she was in a good mood. He held down the rope for her as she entered, microphone already in hand.

"Hey Jeff, Matt," she said in her usual bubbly voice. "So, you wanted to talk to me? I hope you don't think that I came up with the idea for all of this!"

Matt laughed. "No, don't worry. We were just wondering if during one of your _many_ conversations backstage you might have possibly told someone that you were concerned about Jeff's injury, someone who might have done something with that information to lead to this situation?"

Maria put on a show of trying to remember before starting to talk. "Well, there was this one time…" She had barely finished describing the first situation- something about seeing Jericho listening in on one of her conversations- when his music hit and Jericho walked out.

"You cannot be serious," he said as he entered the ring. "Have you really sunken so low that you're forced to get information from _her_?" Maria, acting perfectly insulted, made her way out of the ring, leaving Jericho to finally talk to Jeff and Matt.

"Well unlike some people here, she might actually have had something for us," Matt said.

Jericho smirked. "And what makes you think that I don't have any information?"

"If you have something to tell us then just say it!" Jeff snarled. He knew he needed to act frustrated and annoyed, but right now he was just anxious and curious. He had been waiting to hear what Jericho was going to tell them for hours and now he was finally going to find out what this piece of information was.

"I never said I was going to tell you the information," Jericho pointed out.

"Either tell us what you know or get out of the ring," Matt snapped. He was quickly losing his patience with him.

Whether Jericho could tell that it would not be a good idea to prolong this anymore than he already had or he had gotten tired of tormenting them, he finally did tell them his information. "Alright, fine, I'll tell you," he said. "It was three weeks ago, that night that you first came back. It was after the show. You had already left, Jeff, but Matt here-" He turned to face him. "-was just starting to leave the building. He was on his phone, telling someone how things had gone that night. You remember, don't you Matt?"

"Just get on with it, Jericho!" Jeff was practically yelling at this point.

"Hey, I'm just trying to set the scene, you know, so your brother can remember what was going on at this point. After all, any detail he can remember may help you." He smirked again before continuing, "Anyway, I wasn't paying too much attention to you, Matt. Not after what had happened… earlier that night. However, I did hear someone mention you- both of you. I couldn't hear who they were talking to, so they were probably calling someone, but they definitely sounded like they were talking about Jeff's back problem."

"Anything else?" Jeff asked.

"Why, haven't I done enough for you tonight? What more do you want out of me? I helped you already, didn't I?"

Jeff took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Now would not be a good time for him to attack Jericho, though he really wanted to. True, he may have given them information, but he was still completely infuriating. To his surprise, the second he had convinced himself that it would _not_ be a good idea to punch Jericho, Matt did just that. It wasn't until Jericho started fighting back and the two of them rolled outside the ring that Jeff tried to separate them.

He pulled Matt away before he could attack again, allowing Jericho to make his escape up the ramp. "I'm sorry, Jeff," Matt said quietly as they too made their way up the ramp, after Jericho had already gone backstage. "I just sort of… snapped, I guess."

Jeff chuckled softly. "Don't worry about it. If you hadn't had attacked him I would've within thirty seconds or so."

XXXXX

Jeff yawned as he unlocked his hotel room door. "Guess you were right. My lack of sleep is finally starting to catch up with me," he said with a small chuckle. When he didn't hear a response he frowned and turned around. "Matt?"

His brother looked up when he heard his name. "Sorry, guess I just zoned out."

"It's fine," Jeff said. "So, what do you want to do now that we got that bit of information out of Chris?"

"Actually, I was going to go talk to some people tomorrow," Matt said. "I think I may remember some of the people that were hanging around that night and I want to see if any of them remember anything else."

Jeff nodded. "Sounds like a plan then. Want me to come along too?"

Matt shook his head. "No, you need to sleep. We don't have anything going on until tomorrow afternoon so you can sleep in and get caught up on your sleep while I'll talk to them."

Jeff grinned. "Fair enough. Goodnight Matt."

Matt just nodded, turned, and walked down the hall. Jeff watched him leave, frowning slightly and wondering if there was anything wrong, before closing his door.

XXXXX

"Chris, I need to talk to you."

Jericho turned around, a smirk forming when he saw who was standing there. "I was wondering when you would talk to me, considering you're probably the only one who really understood what I was talking about yesterday."

"Were you serious about it, though? That I was the one that inspired them to suggest that storyline?"

"Yeah, but don't worry about it. It's not like anyone's ever going to know…"

"They'll figure it out! Everyone's going to figure it out eventually!"

Jericho sighed. "Look, I'm sorry that I needed to reveal that little piece of information, I really am."

"No you're not. You have no idea what you've done, what's going to happen now. _My_ career is going to be over when they find out it was me!"

"It's not like you inspired this on purpose, you know," Jericho pointed out. "They're going to realize this and it's not going to be that bad."

"You have no idea how much this is affecting Jeff right now. Once he finds out who's behind it, me and whichever writer actually wrote the storyline, the only thing he's going to be thinking about is revenge! He's not going to think 'Oh, he didn't mean for this to happen'!" There was a faint sigh, and then, "Do you at least know which writer it was?"

Jericho shook his head. "No, I'm sorry to say I don't. Look, just don't get too worked up about it, okay?" He said before smiling apologetically and walking away.

XXXXX

"Have you talked to anyone yet?" Jeff asked Matt as soon as he saw him.

Matt chuckled. "No, not really," he admitted. "I did check in with Vince though. There's no information on which writer actually snuck the storyline in with the others, unfortunately, so we only have Jericho's clue to work off of now."

Jeff shrugged. "Still, that's more than we had before, and once you talk to those people, hopefully we'll be that much closer to get this sorted out."

Matt grinned. "Let's hope so."


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**A/N: Wow! So sorry for the lack of updates! I'll try not to go that long without updating again!**

"Just look at it this way, Jeff, there's only five more weeks until Wrestlemania, not counting this week."

"Which means only five more weeks to figure out who did this before this gets pinned on someone else or the ban becomes permanent for as long as it takes for them to come up with a plausible way out of this, so sorry if that thought doesn't really comfort me!" Jeff said angrily.

Matt just sighed and didn't say anything. He knew Jeff was stressed- hell, he was too. Everyone involved in this stupid, screwed-up mess was starting to get stressed and pretty damn pissed off. He wasn't going to bother talking to Jeff now. If he tried to calm him down he'd get yelled at. If he yelled at his brother he would just leave. Either way, it was a lose-lose situation. It was easier to just not continue the discussion. Jeff would either apologize for snapping at him or they would both just forget that it ever happened.

It wasn't the first time this had happened and, with five weeks until Wrestlemania, it wouldn't be the last.

Matt glanced over at his brother, who seemed to be intent on going through their notes. He sighed again and went back to his own pile of papers. Even after they had asked around again, they had very little worthwhile information to go on. They were so desperate for information that they were going through their notes a second time, hoping to find some small scrap of information they had missed.

Finally, he had to admit defeat. "There's nothing here, Jeff," he said, throwing down the piece of paper he had been looking at.

"Look again," Jeff said without even looking up.

"Jeff, there is _nothing_ here."

"Well we still need information," he pointed out. He still wasn't looking up from his work.

It was too much for Matt. "I know that!" He snapped. "But I'm not going to be able to get anymore information from these notes!"

"So what are we supposed to do? We need to actually have information for when we go out there next week, and even after interviewing Rhodes and DiBiase tomorrow we aren't going to have a lot to go on! Unlike you, I actually care about how that stupid segment is going to go tomorrow!"

Matt stood up. "Where're you going?" Jeff asked.

"Out," Matt said curtly.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not going to stay around if you're going to try to pin any and all problems we encounter on me because in case you haven't noticed I'm actually trying to help you, Jeff!" Matt said as he left the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Jeff stared at the closed door after his brother left, shocked that his brother had left. He hadn't been that horrible to Matt… had he? He quickly replayed their last conversation in his head and he realize, with a horrible, sinking feeling, that he had been pretty harsh to Matt, albeit unintentionally.

Still, he knew that it would all blow over soon and be forgotten about, as it had in the past.

Yet for some reason, this time Matt seemed unwilling to forget about it. When Jeff met up with him the next morning his brother was unusually formal and cold towards him, which hurt Jeff more than he cared to admit. He tried to apologize- many times, in fact- but Matt would just keep saying, "You can't expect a simple apology to fix everything, Jeff."

So, in the last few hours before the show, Jeff just avoided his brother altogether. It was easier than trying to convince him that he didn't mean anything by it, that he was just stressed and tired and annoyed at _everything_, since the excuses sounded weak even to his own ears.

Matt spent the day by himself as well. Part of him felt horrible for treating Jeff this way, but part of him was still seething at how Jeff had been treating _him_. And if this was the only way to get his brother to realize what he had been doing, then so be it.

XXXXX

Jeff leaned up against the wall backstage and sighed, watching as his brother brushed past him and walked off down the hall. To say the segment they had just done had been a fiasco would have been a huge understatement. Neither brother had really thought about how their lack of communication leading up to the show would affect their interview with Rhodes and DiBiase, but it had. They had looked sloppy and disconnected, unsure of what exactly they were supposed to be asking them.

He winced as he remembered how that segment had ended. Things had eventually come to blows in the ring, as planned. He had been going back and forth with Rhodes in the center of the ring for a little while before finally throwing him out. He turned around to see if Matt needed any help, when from out of no where someone landed a punch to his jaw. He rolled out of the ring glanced up in time to DiBiase stand up from where he had been slouching in the corner and attack Matt, who had been standing where Jeff was only a few seconds ago.

He backed up the entrance ramp, holding his jaw and watching as his brother continued to fight down in the ring. Watching, but not helping. He knew who had punched him and it wasn't either of the champions.

He snorted. And to think that just last week J.R. had made a comment about how the two of them always stuck by each other, no matter what.

"Jeff, your match has been moved up. You're going out in ten minutes," someone- Jeff didn't notice who- told him.

He muttered his thanks and stood up, intending to let Matt know of the change. Then he froze, as he remembered that even if he told Matt his match had been moved up, his brother probably wouldn't care, not to mention the fact that right now the last thing he wanted was to have his brother around for his match.

He tried to put at least a little bit of energy into his entrance when his music finally hit; he wanted there to be at least some semblance of normalcy, despite the fact that, for him, at least, this evening was shaping up to be far from normal, in comparison to past weeks anyway. Yet he knew that he couldn't pretend forever and it wasn't long after he got in the ring that he heard J.R. commenting on the fact that Matt wasn't there and his charade began to crumble.

He scowled when he saw who was coming out. Not only was Cody Rhodes making his way to the ring, but he was accompanied by his tag team partner Ted DiBiase as well. He almost wished that someone was in his corner, but he'd fought matches with someone at ringside before. Even if they interfered, he would be fine. Besides, he was just worrying about it because he was stressed out, though he should know by now that that wasn't an excuse for anything-

And before anything could really interrupt his train of thought he found himself locked up in the center of the ring with Cody Rhodes, the match having begun without him truly realizing it.

Yet, despite the fact that he knew he had a match to get through, his heart wasn't in it. It wasn't just that Matt was there, no, _but maybe, _he thought, _that was just the turning point of everything_. It certainly seemed like there was too much that he had to deal with to worry about the match. There was his brother being pissed as him, yes, but he only had five weeks to figure out who had set everything up, and there was still the ultimatum of either "losing" his career or having all of his high-flying moves "banned".

Rhodes knocked him down again and, as he was dragging him to his feet, said, "I am not pulling you through this match. Either do your part or lie down and let me win now."

And something in Jeff just snapped.

XXXXX

"Hey, Matt, why aren't you down at ringside with your brother?" Cena asked as he passed him in the hall.

Matt frowned, stopped, and turned to look at Cena. "What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you know? Your brother's match got moved up. He's out there fighting Cody Rhodes now."

"_What!?"_ Matt ran to the nearest monitor and, sure enough, there was his brother in the ring and, from the looks of things, he wasn't doing to good. _And it's probably my fault…_ He thought guiltily. If he didn't hold what happened last night against Jeff or tried to fix things after the fiasco earlier in the night, maybe Jeff wouldn't be distracted enough to be doing _that_ badly in his match.

Matt shook his head. He didn't have time to worry about what he should have done. Right now he just needed to worry about what he needed to do to fix the situation. Should he go out there halfway through his brother's match or should he leave him be and talk to him afterwards? Should he go out after the match to try to fix things? Should he let his brother calm down? _What am I supposed to do now?_

Suddenly, he a flurry of movement on the monitor caught his attention. Jeff had gotten to his feet and had launched a vicious attack on Rhodes. The camera zoomed in for a relatively closer view of his face and Matt froze. His brother had the same slightly-crazed look in his eye that he had when he did a Swanton and injured his back even more and Matt had a sinking feeling that he knew what was going to happen.

"Damnit, Jeff," Matt swore as he started running down the hall.

XXXXX

Rhodes slowly got to his feet, using the ropes as a support. As soon as he was fully up and had turned around to face the center of the ring, Jeff came charging at him and clotheslined him over the top rope. He didn't even give him a chance to get to his feet; he rolled out of the ring and began attacking Rhodes again before finally rolling him in the ring and going for the cover.

One… two…

He kicked out.

Jeff was pissed. He was sick of the match, sick of the storyline, sick of his brother being angry at him- sick of everything. Subconsciously he knew that he needed to slow down and think things out, but he didn't. He hit Rhodes a couple more times and pushed him back down. He wasn't going to be getting up soon, but Jeff didn't go for the pin.

Instead, he ducked under the ropes and walked over to the turnbuckles.

XXXXX

Matt was going crazy. Or at least that's what he told himself as he ran through the back halls of the arena to get to the ring. There was no way that so many people would be talking about what Jeff was doing- or about to do- but he could've sworn he heard people whispering about it to each other.

That didn't matter though. The only thing that mattered was getting down to the ring to stop his brother. He passed a monitor and slowed down just enough to get the general idea of what was happening. Unfortunately, he hadn't been wrong; Jeff was already standing on the apron. "Crap!" He muttered as he continued his sprint.

He didn't stop when several employees told him to stop running, that he couldn't go out there. He just ignored them and, finally, burst out into the arena.

He didn't hear the crowds, he didn't pay attention to the ref who was yelling at him to get away from the ring. The only thing he saw was his brother, standing on the top turnbuckle. "JEFF!" He yelled as he sprinted down to the ring.

Jeff didn't see him, didn't hear him. Matt watched, almost as if in slow motion, as his brother executed a perfect Swanton.

XXXXX

Jeff landed on Rhodes and instantly went for the cover, but the ref just stood there, staring at him. "Come on!" Jeff yelled. That seemed to startle the ref out of the daze he was in, but instead of doing the three count, he motioned for the bell to be rung.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your winner by disqualification… Cody Rhodes!" Lillian said a moment later as she stared up at the ring in shock.

Suddenly, Jeff realized what he did.

He had done a Swanton. He had gone against Mr. McMahon's "ban" on his moves… which was supposed to result in him being fired. He got off of Cody Rhodes and stood up, his legs shaky. What was going to happen now? He wouldn't actually be fired… would he?

"Jeff? Jeff!" He looked over towards the opposite side of the ring and saw Matt climbing into the ring.

He couldn't find the energy to be angry at his brother. "What's going to happen now?" He asked, his voice emotionless.

Matt squeezed his shoulder. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "But whatever happens, I'm going to be here for you." He sighed. "Listen, about earlier…"

"It's alright," Jeff interrupted. He realized now what he should have realized awhile ago. He had been unreasonably harsh to his brother; Matt had been justified in his anger at him. And what had happened at the end of their promo had just been an accident. _I wish I had just sat down and thought about this before!_

The two brothers looked up almost at the same time as a swarm of security officials walked out into the arena. _Of course… _Jeff thought. W_hat better way to carry out Mr. McMahon's orders then to have me escorted off the premises?_

Matt shifted slightly, almost unconsciously, so he was in front of his brother a bit more. He didn't know what was going to happen now, but he wasn't going to let his brother get dragged out of the arena without a fight. This wasn't about carrying out the storyline or playing up the situation for the crowd. This was all about stopping anything from happening to Jeff.

The security team climbed into the ring and Matt and Jeff launched themselves at them, fully prepared to fight their way out if they had to. It seemed like for every person they fought away, two more came to replace them. They didn't realize until it was too late that the guards had been working to separate the two of them, so Matt couldn't help his brother.

Matt snarled and launched himself towards the opposite corner, where Jeff had four or five guards holding onto him and all but dragging him out of the ring, but he was held back. He tried again, and again, but the security guards were still holding him back and he couldn't get to Jeff.

All he could do was watch as his brother was forced up the ramp and out of the building.

_What do we do now?_


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Me no own.**

**A/N: So, as promised, here's the next chapter! I know, I know- this is a record, isn't it? Two chapters, in one month? –gasp- Also, remember this takes place before this year's draft, which also means that certain people haven't been fired yet. **

Matt walked out of Mr. McMahon's office, his face grim. "He wants to talk to you now," he said to his brother.

Jeff grimaced. "Is he pissed?"

Matt hesitated, and then shrugged. "He's pretty upset, more because he thinks you've made a whole mess out of the scenario, but he'd rather not fire you if he can help it."

Jeff sighed. "Guess I'd better get in there and get this over with then," he muttered. "Wish me luck." He opened the door and walked inside.

Mr. McMahon looked up from where he had been writing something on a piece of paper and just pointed to the chair in front of his desk. Jeff sat down and chose not to say anything until Mr. McMahon asked him something; he didn't want to upset his boss anymore then he already was.

Finally, Mr. McMahon set down his pen and looked at Jeff. "I won't lie to you, you've really complicated things," he said. "Either way, we can't just let you come back to TV. I've already told everyone that if you did one of your moves you'd be fired." Jeff's heart sank, but he didn't say anything.

He continued talking. "I'd rather not have to do that, but our options are limited now. I think- and the writers agree- that it would work best to play this out like you're suspended. The problem would be finding a way so you become suspended instead of just fired. You created this problem, you solve it. What do you think we should do now?"

Jeff hadn't been prepared for that and he needed to think about it for a little while before he answered. "What if, next week, during the time when we usually talk Matt comes out and says something to the effect of either you rehire me or you won't have a show to run anymore. The following week most of the guys could back out of matches and then, at the end of the show, Matt comes out with everyone who'd be threatening to quit if you don't rehire me. You'd come out and say that you'll rehire me, but I'll be suspended until Wrestlemania. At Wrestlemania we'll proceed as planned with one twist- if Matt and I can't name the person who suggested this, I'll be fired again."

Mr. McMahon thought about it for a moment before nodding. "That should work," he said slowly. "I think we had had an idea awhile ago to do something to that effect if you did a Swanton or anything. I'll just run it by the writers and let them work out the details. Have Matt write me a list of people he'd think would work for the strike, though. You two have run this so far; you might as well continue" He picked up his pen and began taking notes on what Jeff had said. "You're free to go."

Jeff stood up and was halfway to the door when Mr. McMahon said, "Oh, and Jeff? If you do something like that again you _will_ be fired." Jeff winced, but didn't say anything. He knew he was lucky that all Vince was doing was "suspending" him until Wrestlemania; he didn't want to say anything that would cause him to change his mind.

Matt was waiting for him outside Mr. McMahon's office when he came out. "What did he say?" He asked. "You aren't actually fired… are you?"

Jeff shook his head, grinning as he saw his brother literally sag with relief. "No. He wants me off TV until Wrestlemania, though, and you're going to have quite a bit of work cut out for yourself…"

"That's alright," Matt said as the two of them began walking down the hall. "What exactly is going to be happening?"

"Well, next week you need to go out at our usual time and basically say that if Vince doesn't rehire me he won't have a show to run anymore. The following week the writer's are going to arrange to have various guys- and Divas, I guess- skip out on their matches. At the end of the show you come out, introduce a whole mess of people- by the way, Vince wants you to give him a list of people for that part- and say that all of them will quit unless I'm rehired," Jeff explained.

"I'm assuming that, after that, Vince'll come out and say that he'll rehire you, so they don't quit?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, basically."

Matt nodded slowly. "So how does that work into you staying off TV until Wrestlemania?"

"When he comes out he's going to say that he'll rehire me, but I'll be suspended until Wrestlemania. At Wrestlemania everything will proceed as planned, except that instead of my moves being banned if we can't figure out who did this, I'll be fired again," Jeff told him.

"You weren't kidding when you said that I'm going to have my work cut out for me," Matt said. "You planning on helping me with any of this?"

"'Course I am," Jeff said with a chuckle. "If I left you to do this alone you'd screw it all up!"

Matt spluttered indignantly and shoved his brother. Jeff just laughed and pushed him back. Soon enough the two of them were mock-fighting in the middle of the hallway. _At least this time we're just fighting for fun…_

XXXXX

"So, who're we putting on this list?" Matt asked later that night. He was sitting at the small table in his hotel room, idly twirling a pen in his hands, while Jeff was sprawled out across the bed.

"Mm, Shawn and Hunter, for sure," Jeff said. "Or at least Shawn. After they had the whole storyline where Shawn stood up for me when I was gone he has to be on the list."

Matt wrote down one name, presumably Shawn's, hesitated for a moment, then wrote down the other. "I was thinking maybe some of the Diva's," he said. "Maria, Candice, Mickie, and some of the others, maybe." He scribbled down the names as he talked. "Cena, maybe, as well… and Paul London and Brian Kendrick…Kennedy…"

"What about adding people from ECW and Smackdown?" Jeff interrupted. "I mean, it would have a bigger effect if the entire business, not just one show, would theoretically be affected."

"Good point… so what about Batista, Rey Mysterio, Finlay and Hornswoggle, Michelle McCool, Kelly Kelly, Jimmy Wang Yang, Shannon, obviously, Evan Bourne over on ECW, CM Punk, and Kofi Kingston." Matt wrote down the names. "That'll give us…twenty or so people. I don't know if that'll be enough, but the writers might add some more as well."

Jeff nodded. "And even just twenty might be enough, since losing that many people at once would be a believable blow to the company."

Matt read through the list one more time before folding it in half and sticking it in his pocket. "So what exactly are you going to be doing for the next four weeks or so until Wrestlemania?" He asked.

"I don't know," Jeff said truthfully. "I don't want you to have to deal with by yourself, so I'll probably stay on the road with you so I can help you out."

Matt shook his head. "You don't have to. You can go back home, if you want. You should get caught up on your rest; you've been running yourself into the ground recently."

Jeff snorted. "And you haven't been?"

Matt laughed. "Alright, fine. We've both been running ourselves into the ground trying to figure out who started everything, but that doesn't mean that you should still have to deal with our hectic tour schedule if you don't have to."

"I'm still not leaving you to deal with my problem," Jeff said. "If I stay with the rest of the brand I can do the boring stuff like going through notes while you're at shows, so you don't have to do it later. Since I won't actually be wrestling I won't be as exhausted and that way it'll be one less thing for you to worry about."

Matt was taking awhile to think about it so Jeff continued. "Look, you can't force me to leave. I'll stay around whether or not you want me to and you can't stop me from going through our notes either. So you might as well just agree with my plan."

Matt sighed, but he wasn't angry or annoyed with his brother. "Alright," he said. "We'll do it your way."

XXXXX

They wouldn't be able to give Vince the list until before Monday's show and, since they couldn't work on the exact details of their course of action until they had the list finalized, there wasn't anything else they could do to prepare for the next episode. Yet for the first time neither of them really wanted to sort through information either. They had more important things to worry about for the next two weeks- such as making Jeff's departure from TV actually plausible. They would still have two weeks to work after that which, admittedly, was cutting it close but they would make it work.

True to his word Jeff did stay with his brother and the rest of the Raw roster, despite the fact that he wasn't going to be appearing on TV for four weeks. He knew that he wasn't going to be able to avoid his coworkers- and their questions- forever so instead of avoiding them so he wouldn't have to discuss what was going to happen next both him and Matt hung out with them so they could answer most of their questions at once. Neither of them wanted a repeat of what happened after Jeff got injured when they had to individually tell everyone what had happened.

Luckily for them, they only had to explain what was going to happen to a few larger groups of people. They didn't get a chance to mention it to everyone, but they were hoping that those people would tell others, so they wouldn't have to be constantly telling others what was going to happen.

They were heading back to Matt's room to make a few revisions to the list when they heard someone behind them call out, "Matt! Jeff!"

They stopped and turned around to see Shawn coming their way.

"Hey, Shawn," Jeff said as he joined them. "Let me guess, you want to know what Matt and I are going to do because of my Swanton last week."

Shawn grinned. "I take it you've been explaining things to people all day?"

"Basically. We've talked to two or three groups of people and we're hoping that the others will find out by word of mouth so we don't have to explain it to everyone."

"Sounds like a good plan," Shawn said, still grinning. "Would you mind explaining it to me or should I find out by word of mouth too?"

Jeff laughed. "No, we'll explain it to you." He quickly gave Shawn the watered down version of events that they had been explaining to others.

When he had finished Shawn was quiet for a few moments, nodding slowly to himself. "It sounds like would work," he finally said. "But have you thought about putting one or two people- besides you, Matt- in charge of the strike, or whatever it is? It might be more believable if someone besides Jeff's brother showed a strong desire to help, instead of just being there, you know?"

"I'd love to," Shawn said. "You should probably let Vince know what you want to do first, though. Let me know what Vince says about it before that show."

Matt and Jeff nodded and, after exchanging the usual goodbyes, Shawn left, leaving the two of them alone. Matt sighed. "Let's just hope that Vince is alright with our plans..."

XXXXX

Vince set down the list that Matt and Jeff had come up with and looked at the two of them. "I thought that this was just going to stay on Raw," he said. "Considering that everything the two of you have done so far has been contained to the one show."

"Well, we figured that it would have more of an impact if we including the possibility of people on the other two brands walking out as well," Matt explained. "It makes it seem like more of a believable impact on the company that way."

Vince nodded. "That is true… And you were thinking about having Shawn and Hunter be the spokesmen for this strike, so to speak, is that correct?"

"Yes sir," Jeff said. "This way they people who're threatening to quit play a larger role then just standing around in the ring while Matt talks."

"I see…" Vince read through the list again, while Matt and Jeff waited nervously to see what he would say about it. "I like it," he finally said. Matt and Jeff breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll pass it onto the writers to see what they say about it, obviously, but it looks like we're going with this. Matt, that means you need to set things in motion tonight, and Jeff, just make sure no fans see you." The two of them nodded and quickly left the room.

"Well that didn't go too bad," Jeff said as they walked down the hall. "I mean, he could've completely rejected the list or something; at least he didn't do that."

Matt chuckled. "Yeah, that is true," he admitted. He stretched and said, "Well, I'm supposed to start the show tonight, so we should probably head over there, so I'm ready to go out."

"Do you have a match tonight?"

Matt shook his head. "Not that know of, anyway, though I think it would screw up the whole lead-in to the strike if I did, you know?"

"Yeah, guess I didn't think about that…" Jeff said. The two of them continued to chat for awhile until Matt finally got the signal that he was going to be going out soon.

"Good luck," Jeff said. "I'll be watching from back here."

Matt's music came on, so he just nodded, smiled at his brother, and went out to start off the show. The crowd was deafening as he made his way to the ring. He grabbed the microphone, paused for a moment to listen to the various chants that had started up, and said, "I've had a pretty rotten week. Let's just say it started with bad and, somehow, still managed to become worse." He motioned to the Titantron where the clip of Jeff doing his Swanton and being forced away by the security guards was playing.

He continued talking before the crowd became too loud for him to get anything in. "So we start off with Jeff being unfairly fired. Then I spend the entire week trying to get in touch with Mr. McMahon to see if he'd change his mind, but Mr. McMahon refused to talk to me. So here I am, publicly demanding that you not fire my brother, and I will not leave this ring until you get down here and talk to me!"

The crowd went wild at his words and everyone was looking towards the top of the ramp, waiting for Mr. McMahon to come out, but he didn't. Matt paced back and forth in the ring, occasionally looking back up there, but still no Mr. McMahon. "I'm serious, Vince, I am not leaving until you let my brother stay in the company and if that means that there aren't any matches tonight, then so be it!"

There was a brief pause, during which only the cheers from the crowd could be heard and then his music came on and Mr. McMahon walked out. The crowd began booing him and screaming at him, with some people chanting, "Bring back Jeff! Bring back Jeff!"

Vince ignored them and said to Matt, "Now, you know as well as I do that I can't do anything about Jeff. I did warn him that he'd lose his job if he didn't follow what I said, and true to my word, I fired him."

"Then rehire him!" Matt yelled.

"I can't do that either."

"Then I'm not leaving this ring at all tonight," Matt said.

Vince chuckled. "See, I thought you'd say that, so I'll make you a deal. Either you leave the ring on your own and keep your job or you're carried from the ring and you get fired like your brother." A team of security guards came out and stood in a row behind him. "What's it going to be, Matt?"

"How about I make you a deal? I leave this ring voluntarily and you have one week to rehire my brother," he said.

"I run this show," Vince snarled. "I don't have to listen to you."

"You have one week to rehire my brother," Matt repeated. "Or you won't have a show to run anymore!"


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything recognizable.**

**A/N: So. I'm thinking one chapter after this. And then a sequel. My point is, expect this story to be drawing to a close and another one to be starting soon. Also, Classic Superstar Pac gave me some really good advice, which will be addressed in the next chapter and in following stories. Again, remember the rosters are set up the way they were before the draft.**

Jeff was sitting in his living room, just relaxing on his couch, flipping through the channels. Matt had been told that he didn't need to be at any of the house shows for that week; apparently creative felt that it would take away from his last statement on Raw if he then went on to wrestle before the next episode. So the two of them had decided to return home and relax until they needed to get on the road again.

He flipped past Sci-Fi, frowned, and went back to that channel. ECW was on. _Must have lost track of the time; I didn't realize it was on now._ He settled down to see what was happening on the other brand. Chavo was making his way to the ring, accompanied by Bam Neely. His opponent was announced as Evan Bourne, but, though his music came on, the young superstar didn't come out.

Jeff frowned. _No, it's just a coincidence…_ He thought, but just to be sure he picked up his phone and called his brother. "Hey, Matt, are you watching ECW?" he asked when Matt picked up.

"No… why?"

"Just go turn it on and watch," Jeff said. He could hear Matt walk out of the room and then he heard ECW come on in the background. "What am I supposed to be watching for?" Matt asked.

"Evan Bourne."

The two of them were silent for a few minutes as they both watched Chavo pace in the ring, while the announcers speculated about where Evan Bourne could be. Finally, a different opponent came out and the match finally began.

"Now tell me that that doesn't seem like they're starting the strike a bit too early over on ECW," Jeff said. "I mean, we did put Bourne on our list…"

"Yeah, but Vince didn't say anything starting the strike on the other shows," Matt said. "Look, you watch ECW- and I'll watch it too- and call me back when it's over. If they're starting the strike early they'll have to have CM Punk and Kofi Kingston back out of their matches as well."

The two of them hung up and continued watching ECW. Neither of them was quite sure what to expect, though both had a feeling that the strike was starting early, considering that CM Punk and Kofi Kingston were going to be fighting that night. Sure enough when it was time for their match- a tag team match against John Morrison and The Miz- neither of them came out. Morrison and the Miz ended up fighting Hawkins and Ryder instead.

His phone rang and he picked it up. "Alright, you have a point," Matt said. "It does look like they're starting the strike, on ECW at least."

"Why, though?" Jeff asked. "I mean, Vince wasn't exactly thrilled that we were expanding this beyond Raw in the first place. Why would he take it a step further and have people back out of matches without giving the fans any sort of explanation?"

"I guess because it would make it more believable if the people who took part in the strike actually went on strike," Matt said. "You know, instead of just coming out to the ring and not doing anything."

"Man, Vince is playing with fire though," Jeff said. "I mean, it may just be for one week only, but this is going to affect ECW next week as well. They ended up having people back out of two matches in one hour. Considering how many Smackdown people we put on that list, can you imagine what Friday's show is going to be like if they start the strike over there as well?"

"It's going to be chaos. If every Smackdown superstar on our list has to back out of a match, that's five or six matches that are going to be affected- not counting the Diva matches," Matt said. "They're going to have a hard time keeping the show together this week if they go that route."

Matt and Jeff watched Smackdown together that Friday so they could find out if the strike was really starting early on all the brands, though they were pretty sure that, if ECW had started the strike, Smackdown would start it as well.

The show opened up with Vickie in the ring. "Now, as some of you may know, this past Tuesday on ECW several superstars decided to not show up for their matches," she said. "Now, while Theodore Long may let them get away with that over there, this is Friday Night Smackdown and I'm in charge. If anyone skips out on a match tonight there will be serious repercussions."

Batista's music hit, much to Matt and Jeff's surprise, and the Animal made his way down to the ring. "Look, Vickie, I understand you have a show to run here," he said. "And I know that having five or six, hell maybe even seven or eight, people back out of matches just makes your life that much harder. But there are some things that are more important then worrying about what unfair match we'll be stuck in next week, which is why I'm telling you right now that I will _not_ be fighting in my match tonight."

Jeff stared at the TV, his mouth open slightly in shock. "They had Batista- Batista, of all people- come out at the beginning of the show and announce that he isn't going to be fighting tonight?"

"You said it on Tuesday, Jeff, they're playing with fire," Matt said. "Either this is going to work brilliantly, or it's going to blow up in their face… and right now I think they're taking this a bit too far."

As the show progressed it became clear that the writers were going to take this as far as possible. Every single superstar and Diva that they had put on their list backed out of a match. Rey Mysterio, Finlay, Hornswoggle, Shannon, Jimmy Wang Yang, Michelle McCool- everyone. There was one, maybe two matches that didn't involve someone having to fill in for someone else.

"This is just excruciating to watch," Jeff murmured as yet another replacement had to come out for a match. "I don't know what they were thinking, but this just isn't working. It's completely incoherent and none of the matches are even decent."

"They're going to have a hard time dealing with the rebound from this," Matt said. "I mean, what are they going to do next week? Just sit back and act like nothing different happened, except they're all going to be put in unfair matches and most likely lose?"

"Whatever they're planning, they've certainly made your job a lot harder," Jeff said. "You need to bring together all the loose ends from not only Raw, but ECW and Smackdown as well. You're going to have your work cut out for you…"

XXXXX

When Jeff and Matt arrived at the arena that night it was nearly complete chaos. Twenty or so people had been waiting for them to arrive and, as soon as they walked in, they were immediately bombarded with questions, the most frequently asked one simply being _What's going on tonight?_

"Okay, quick run down of events," Matt said above the noise of the mini crowd, which quickly quieted down to listen to him. "How many of you have matches tonight?" Several people raised their hands. "And do you know that you're going to be backing out of them?" They all nodded. "Good. At least we're on the same page then.

"Anyway, at the end of the show I'm going to be out in the ring, basically telling Vince that I warned him this would happen. I'm going to ask you guys to come out to the ring. There's been a change of plans- Shawn, Punk, and Batista, you guys are going to be spokesmen for your brands, instead of just one or two for everyone. Mickie, you're going to be spokesperson for the Divas."

The four of them nodded and Matt continued. "At any rate, Vince, Theodore Long, and Vickie are going to come out at that point and basically threaten to fire us- but we point out that if they fire us they're losing too many wrestlers at one point, and wouldn't that be such a huge blow to the company, etc. I demand that he rehires Jeff, eventually he says that he'll rehire him, but he'll be suspended until Wrestlemania. Any questions?"

"Yeah, what are we supposed to do back on ECW and Smackdown after this is over?" Someone muttered. "Seems like we're risking our necks to save his, when he knew what was going to happen when he did that Swanton."

"Yeah, I knew what I was doing," Jeff said. "And I know I've dragged all of you into this mess and I am sorry for that. If you don't want to be here, well, with any luck you can completely forget about this after tonight. If you're here willingly then I thank you for coming here to save my ass."

There was some murmuring in the crowd, but other then that no one said anything. "So, I guess just treat this like a regular show, then," Matt said. "Get ready, talk to friends, hang out in catering- do whatever you want, just make sure you're reading to go out for the last fifteen or so minutes of the show."

Although Jeff and Matt were the first ones to arrive at the arranged meeting place it wasn't long before the others began to arrive as well. Matt watched the growing crowd apprehensively; it was starting to sink in just how important his part in everything was going to be. Either he would do his job well and everything would go smoothly or twenty or so people would walk out to that ring and get out of the situation by sheer luck after having botched their performance.

"Calm down, Matt, everything's going to go fine," Jeff said softly, so that only his brother could hear. "This isn't the first time you've gone out there to do a promo or anything."

"No, but it's the first time that my promos needs to seem like it's convincing enough to not only persuade Vince to rehire you, but to not fire everyone out in the ring," Matt pointed out. "And I'm not sure if I can be that convincing."

"Matt, all you're doing right now is freaking yourself out. Don't think about this like it's any different than any other promo. Just go out there and do your best. You'll be fine, trust me."

Matt just nodded, double checked that everyone knew what to do and, as soon as his music hit, made his way down to the ring.

"It's been an interesting week in the WWE universe," he said casually. A few clips of people skipping out on their matches played on the Titantron. "Interesting, isn't it, that so many people would start to skip matches all at the same time…"

Vince's music hit and down to the ring. "Look, before you say anything, I just want to remind you that I did make you a deal," Matt said. "Either you agree to rehire my brother, or this continues and your show basically gets destroyed."

"Or, since you're the one in charge here, how about I just fire you now?"

Shawn's music hit, followed by Batista's, CM Punk's, and Mickie James's. The four of them came out and made their way to the ring as well. "Well, no one said that Matt here was the only one in charge of this," Batista said. "I mean, there was no way that he could organize things over on Smackdown."

"Or ECW," CM Punk added.

"And the Diva's wouldn't listen to him- no offense, Matt," Mickie said.

"Not to mention he's been kinda busy dealing with that little mystery you left him six or so weeks ago," Shawn said. "He wouldn't have had the time to organize things on Raw and deal with that."

"Then I'll fire all five of you!" Vince yelled.

Matt just shrugged, a grin starting to spread across his face as the show's theme music hit. Vince spun around to face the ramp, where the remaining superstars and Divas were starting to come out. "Well, we weren't the only ones to take part in this, though," Matt said. "So either you fire all of us or those that stay behind continue this for however long it takes. It's your call."

"You think I won't do it, huh? I'm not afraid to fire all of you!" Vince yelled.

"Can the shows handle it, though?" CM Punk asked. "I mean, there may only be three ECW people out here but look at who they are- Evan Bourne, Kofi Kingston, and me, of course. Do you really think that your smallest show can handle the loss of three of its most promising wrestlers?"

"And you'll be losing two of the few tag teams left in the WWE and two former world champions over on Smackdown," Batista said.

"Raw will lose three of it's top superstars- Triple H, Cena, and myself," Shawn said. "As well as a tag team and Kennedy over there."

"Think about how the Diva's division will be impacted," Mickie added. "Can you stand to lose so many of us at once?"

For the first time that night Vince visibly hesitated. "Fine!" he yelled. "Your damn brother can stay with the company." The crowd cheered and Vince had to wait until they calmed down before he could finish talking. "But he'll be suspended until Wrestlemania at which point, if you don't have an answer for me, his moves won't be permanently banned, he'll just be fired again!"

XXXXX

Jeff pushed through the crowd that had just come backstage, ignoring the people who were grumbling about how much of a waste of time that was and how they shouldn't have had to save his ass, etc. He finally found Matt and told him, "Hey, good job out there."

Matt shrugged. "It wasn't bad," he said. "I never want to have to do that again, but at least it's over and done with now." Seeing that Jeff was about to start apologizing again, he quickly changed the subject. "So, I guess we should probably start working on figuring out whose behind all of this again, shouldn't we?"

Jeff nodded. "Only two weeks left to figure it out," he murmured. "For some reason, that doesn't seem like quite as much time as it did before…"


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I don't own… well, anything.**

**A/N: Er… perhaps it would be better if you read the author's notes at the end? And please, keep in mind while you're reading this that the first chapter of the sequel is already up. And… I won't say anything else until the end.**

Two weeks. Technically two episodes of Raw, and then the rest of that week until Wrestlemania, but for all intents and purposes it was two weeks, especially since they needed to have a solution by that last episode of Raw. Two weeks ago they thought they'd have plenty of time to figure everything out. After all, it was mostly just going through the information they already had and maybe asking people a few more questions.

The problem was, two weeks seemed a lot longer from the other side of the strike.

Two weeks. Fourteen days. 336 hours. Jeff had done the calculations and he knew how much time they had- and it wasn't a lot. That confident, if at times panicky and depressed, attitude his brother and he had had up until that point had disappeared. Sure, they had the information. The problem was piecing it together and figuring out just _what_ it was that they had.

Every spare moment that they had they spent going through their piles of notes. Matt was taken off Raw, mostly because Creative didn't have anything for him until the results from Wrestlemania, so both he and Jeff returned home to work. They met at Jeff's house everyday and spent hours upon hours pouring over the information they had. Yet, despite the time they put into it, it didn't seem like they were getting anywhere.

One week. 7 days. 168 hours. They were exhausted- absolutely exhausted- but they didn't stop trying to solve the mystery unless they absolutely had to. They knew their time was running out and they began to examine every possibility. Every single person on the Raw roster- and several people on ECW and Smackdown as well- was considered.

"Jericho… what about Jericho? It seems like something he'd do…" Jeff muttered as he paced back and forth, occasionally flipping through the papers he held in his hands.

"Mm, yeah, but considering he's supposed to be "better" than everyone else, it doesn't seem like something he'd do, since there's not really anything he'd be punishing you for or anything," Matt said, not bothering to look up from his own papers.

"Orton, then? You know how ambitious he is…"

"Yeah, but who isn't?"

"A Diva, then? We had considered Maria at one point…"

"But I can't really picture one of the girls doing something like this, not when none of them are really involved in what we do right now."

Jeff sighed and flopped down onto one of the relatively empty chairs. "What are your theories, then?" He asked.

Matt continued to go through the papers and said, "I think we're going about this the wrong way."

Jeff sat up and stared at his brother. "What?"

"Well, we have." Matt was still completely calm, acting as if this was just any other conversation.

Jeff frowned. "I don't follow. How the hell could we have been going about this the wrong way for nearly seven weeks?"

"Think about it. You just named Jericho and Orton. The other people at the top of our list are Rhodes and DiBiase. At one point, we also suspected Hunter, Shawn, and Maria- but we don't anymore," Matt explained.

"And your point is? All of those people could be behind it and we did have logical reasons for removing Hunter, Shawn, and Maria from the list," Jeff pointed out.

"Fine, but look at it this way. Who haven't we considered at all? Cena, most of the Divas, London and Kendrick, Jamie Noble- we've basically been focusing on the heels on Raw," Matt said. "And yes, I know that we've ignored some of the heels," he added, seeing that his brother was going to start arguing again. "But the _only_ people we're really considering right now- and briefly considering someone and then clearing them doesn't count- are the heels that are at the top of their game. We've been focusing on the characters, and not the actual people."

"And we aren't dealing with their characters in this…" Jeff murmured, finally seeing what his brother was getting at. "We're dealing with someone who went after me because that's the type of person he is, not because that's something his character would do."

Matt nodded. "Exactly. I mean, look at Orton. He tried to give us some sound advice early on in this- and we ignored it, because of his character."

"Not to mention Jericho gave us that piece of information, which we've completely ignored simply because of the bastard he plays on TV."

"And look at Hunter and Shawn's pasts. They haven't always been the nice guys they are to us," Matt pointed out.

Jeff sighed. "We've really screwed this up, haven't we?"

Matt chuckled humorlessly. "I think that's putting it a bit lightly…"

Jeff sighed again and ran a hand through his hair, brushing it back from his eyes. "So what do we do now?"

Matt visibly hesitated and Jeff's heart sunk, knowing what was coming next. Sure enough, Matt finally said, "We need to scrap everything and start over."

Jeff was already shaking his head. "No," he said firmly. "We can't just scrap everything. This is seven weeks worth of research and questioning here! We can't just say "Oh, let's ignore all of it" when we have less than a week left to work!"

"Jeff…"

"No! Look, isn't there something else we could do? I mean, we have a lot of information here- we have to be able to find _something_ in it that could lead us to who did it!"

"You know as well as I do that we aren't going to find out anything unless we go back and start looking at everything from a different angle," Matt said gently.

Jeff slumped back down in the chair. "Fuck…" He sighed. "You do realize that there's no way we're going to have enough time to figure everything out, right?" Matt didn't say anything. "Of course you know that, what am I talking about…" he murmured. "So what? Do we just give up then?"

"No, of course not!" Matt said. "We need to let Vince know that we're going to have to have Creative come up with someone we can pin this on. We'll start feuding with them and continue the investigation off camera. Then, once we know who it is we'll reveal them- or whoever we're feuding with can, if that would make more sense- and we'll move on to fight them."

"I still don't like this," Jeff said quietly.

Matt didn't say anything. He didn't particularly like the situation either; if he had his choice he would have loved nothing more than to find out who was behind everything and expose them at Wrestlemania. Yet he knew that, if they weren't careful, they could end up pinning the blame on the wrong person- and if Creative wasn't there to control the situation they could ruin someone's career. As much as he wanted this whole nightmare to be over, he wasn't willing to ruin someone's career if they were innocent.

Matt was startled from his thoughts by his brother asking, "Do you want to do the honors or shall I?" Jeff was standing in front of him holding out the phone and, judging by the fairly amused smirk on his face, he'd been there for quite awhile.

Matt scowled and snatched the phone. "I'll call," he grumbled. "Considering I'm the one that decided we needed to restart the investigation…"

He dialed the number he wanted and waited for someone to pick up on the other end. "Hello?"

"Hey, Stephanie," Matt said. "It's Matt. Do you have a minute?"

"Yeah, I'm just going over the final script for Monday's Raw," she said. "Is this about what's going on at Wrestlemania?"

"Yeah, it is."

"Do you want to talk to my father about it first or is it strictly an issue for Creative?"

"Well, at this point I'd say it's more of an issue for Creative," Matt said. "See, Jeff and I kind of realized that we're going to have to rework our entire investigation if we want to find out who suggested that storyline, and we won't have enough time between now and Wrestlemania to come to a solution."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds. "Are you sure you can't do anything between now and then?" She finally asked.

"No, we can't." He sighed. "Look, I'll admit. We've screwed up big time. We've gone about this the wrong way entirely and we're going to need time to regroup and start again."

Stephanie sighed. "And you need someone to take the blame for this at Wrestlemania."

"Exactly. Hopefully we'll be able to figure it eventually and we can clear whoever you chose and start feuding with the person who's really behind it, but until then we need a scapegoat of sorts. Can you come up with someone?"

"Mm, I can try. I'm going to have to go through and see who doesn't have a feud going into Wrestlemania, though," she murmured. "I'll have to get back to you on this. I need to talk to a few people and possibly rearrange a few things before I can tell you what's going to happen."

"Okay then. Listen, thank you so much Stephanie," Matt said sincerely.

She chuckled. "Don't mention it. Just try not to make a habit of it, alright? This is the second time you guys needed to be saved- so to speak. Let's not make it three."

Matt grinned. "Fair enough," he said. After they had said goodbye Matt hung up and tossed the phone at his brother.

Jeff caught the phone and tossed it onto and empty chair, causing a stack of papers that had been sitting there to fall onto the floor. "How'd she take it?"

"Surprisingly well. Not too thrilled that she's going to have to find someone to pin the blame on, but she wasn't screeching at me either, thank god."

"Well that's always a good thing," Jeff said as he did his best to suppress a grin. "Any idea who's getting the blame for everything?"

Matt shook his head. "She said that she'd have to talk to some people first and rearrange a couple of things before she'd know."

Jeff sighed. "So basically all we can do now is wait."

XXXXX

Wrestlemania. The Grandest Stage of Them All. The pay-per-view where careers were made and people became legends. For Matt and Jeff it was the night they had been anticipating for two months. While they didn't have their culprit yet- and the investigation was far from over- they were still happy that Wrestlemania had finally arrived.

"Just think, after tonight the ban on my moves will be lifted," Jeff said as he waited backstage with his brother for their cue to go out. "And we don't have to worry about continuing the investigation onscreen anymore."

Matt grinned. "What happened to _Oh, I hate going into Wrestlemania without knowing who did this_ or whatever it was you were saying before?"

"Yeah, well, weren't you saying the exact same thing?" Jeff asked with a chuckle.

"Oh shut up," Matt said, though there wasn't any real annoyance in his voice. There was something about the excitement that seemed to literally charge the air that made it nearly impossible to truly be mad at anyone.

In almost no time at all their music came on and they were out in the arena to a huge pop from the crowd. The two of them took their time getting down to the ring. Once they had finished their traditional poses on the turnbuckles, they both grabbed mics and Jeff spoke first.

"It is good to be here!" He said. "For awhile, I didn't even expect to last long enough in this company to make to Wrestlemania but, through the actions of my brother and many superstars across the brands, I am still here!" The crowd cheered and Jeff paused for a moment before continuing.

"As you all know, about a year ago I injured my back in a match against Randy Orton. Months later, after truly believing that I would never wrestle again, I made my return to Raw- only to have Mr. McMahon tell me that, because of an unknown coworker, I wouldn't be able to use any of my moves, unless I found out who they were by Wrestlemania."

"And that brings us to tonight," Matt said, picking up where his brother left off. "We know who did this, so Vince, why don't you come out here so we can settle this matter once and for all."

Vince's music hit and he strutted down to the ting. "I had been hoping that you wouldn't figure it out so I could fire your ass-" he looked directly at Jeff as he spoke; Jeff just glared back at him, but didn't say anything. "-but a deal's a deal and it looks like not only will you be staying in the WWE, but you'll be getting a title shot for any title you want."

"Any title?" Matt frowned at the question. _Why's he asking about this now?_

"Any title," Vince confirmed. "Why? What were you thinking?"

"Tag Team titles," Jeff said casually. "That is, if Matt here can be included in the offer."

Matt froze. "Jeff, no!" he said. "Use it for the WWE Championship, or the World Heavyweight Championship!"

Jeff shook his head. "No," he said. "When I was out with my injury I swore that I would do something to make everything- you having to take months off to help me, the stress I put you through, just everything. I know that this may be one of my only opportunities to win a major championship, but after everything you've done for me during all of this, I want nothing more than to be Tag Team Champion with you again."

Matt knew that it wouldn't do him any good to protest- and he found that he didn't really want to. He knew that Jeff wanted to win a major championship so much; he had worked and strived for it and always fallen slightly short, which drove him nearly insane. The fact that he was willing to give up a perfect chance to achieve that dream, simply to repay _him_ touched him deeply.

"As touching as this is, you aren't getting _any_ title shot unless I am told who the person behind everything is," Vince said impatiently.

Before Jeff could even open his mouth to speak a timid voice said, "E-excuse me, but I-I have a m-message for you three, if that's alright, sir." Jeff recognized the speaker as one of the new employees that had just been hired. Despite the interruption, Jeff heart went out to her. She looked completely terrified, not that he could blame her; she was just starting out and yet she had to come out during Wrestlemania to interrupt something. _I wonder what she wants, though_, he wondered.

Vince, however, wasn't feeling as compassionate as Jeff. "What the hell do you think you doing?" he snarled. "This had better be important or I _will_ be firing someone tonight after all!"

"Well, s-someone passed a n-note to me and I d-didn't have time t-to catch you b-before you c-came out, b-but someone wants you t-to watch this before th-they reveal who did it, sir." She pointed up at the Titantron before scurrying backstage.

A video began playing on the screen. It was obvious that it wasn't filmed on a professional camera. It was hard to make out exactly what was going on, but they could see someone standing with their back to the camera in what looked like the backstage area of an arena. The person seemed to be in the middle of a conversation on a cell phone. Everyone in the arena watched eagerly, hoping that this would be proof of who did it.

"I think he's fine. I mean, he wouldn't be back here if he wasn't," the person was saying. The voice was too distorted to clearly make out who it was. There was a pause, presumably to let the person on the other end say something, before he spoke again. "I know… I wish he hadn't come back… No, I'm not going to go to Vince about this… Don't worry. I'll think of something." The person said goodbye and tucked his phone in his pocket before turning around.

The arena was dead silent. The picture may not have been completely clear, but there was no mistaking the face that was now frozen on the screen.

It was Matt.

No one spoke. No one moved. The crowd was in too much shock to boo, the announcers too stunned to even try to describe what was going on. Vince looked lost as to what he was supposed to do and Matt looked confused.

Jeff didn't notice any of this. The arena could have fallen down around him and he wouldn't have noticed. He just stared up at the picture of his brother on the Titantron. His initial reaction had been that Matt couldn't have been behind everything. Yet the more he thought about it, the more he thought _Why not_? Ignoring all of the conspiracy theories that were running through his mind, there were two points that stood out: Jericho's clue, where he hinted at Matt knowing what he was talking about and Dr. Carleson specifically telling Matt- Matt alone, though obviously he later told him- that his high risk maneuvers would put him at risk for more serious back injuries. _And then there's the video…_

"Matt…" Jeff said quietly, turning to face his brother and finally breaking the spell that had settled over their group.

Matt looked at him and grinned shakily. "Looks like someone was listening in to our conversations before you had your back surgery, when we were joking about fighting each other…"

Jeff stared at him incredulously. "Are you seriously making jokes right now?"

"Oh come on, don't tell me that you believe that video…"

"Matt, do you even realize what's going on? You were caught on film having a conversation that honestly sounds like you were hinting at setting this up! What am I supposed to think?"

It was Matt's turn to stare at him, his mouth open slightly. "You actually think that I had something to do with this? After all I've done to help you?"

"I don't know what to think!" Their voices were getting louder, but the arena stayed silent. "Right now that video looks damn convincing and you haven't said anything to explain it!"

"You want an explanation? Fine. I had that conversation, but there was more to it. Whoever wanted that shown edited out parts."

Jeff didn't know what to think. "Even if you were guilty you'd say that…" he muttered.

"What? Jeff, I can't believe you! What sort of idiot would honestly think that _his own brother_ would set him up like this?" Matt knew it was the wrong thing to say, but it slipped out anyway. He was just so frustrated with Jeff. _Why doesn't he get it?_

"Oh yeah, because insulting me is really going to help things," Jeff said sarcastically. "For someone who's innocent, you certainly aren't acting that way."

"What do you want from me?" Matt yelled. "I've told you that the video's fake and you still don't believe me! In case you've forgotten, I've been there for you through every step of this. Your fucking injury, this screwed up mystery- every damn second of it I've been there, even when I've wanted nothing more than to walk away from it!"

"And wouldn't this be the perfect way to get out of it? Get rid of me, get rid of all of your problems, right?" Jeff didn't want to believe it, but other than flimsy excuses Matt hadn't done anything to convince him he wasn't to blame.

"I can't believe you," Matt repeated, his voice quieting dangerously. "I just can't believe you." He threw down his mic, climbed out of the ring, and began walking up the ramp. If his brother wasn't going to listen to reason, he wasn't going to stand there arguing with him anymore.

As he walked away he heard Jeff say, "Mr. McMahon? I'd like to use my title shot for a different belt."

**A/N2: -hides from anger readers- Hey, hey, calm down. If you kill me you'll never know what happened, right? In my defense they were **_**both**_** acting a bit like asses, so you can't say that just one was overreacting. And remember, the first chapter of the next story is already up, if you want to read it. **


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